


If the ley lines you should follow

by InTheArmsofaThief



Series: Ley Lines [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Future Fic, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Parallel Universe, Sorry!, Temporary Character Death, because of the universe hopping, i'm not sure if i should put them in the relationship tag area, lots of side ships, oh god this is so much more angsty than I originally intended, partial character death, super angsty stiles, universe hopping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-14 11:40:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 52,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2190327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheArmsofaThief/pseuds/InTheArmsofaThief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Derek just stood there, staring at Stiles like he was a ghost.</p><p>“Dude, I know it’s been a while but you don’t have to look at me like you’re that surprised I’m hung over in the woods.  It’s practically a tradition at this point.”</p><p>“<em>Stiles</em>?” Derek whispered, the name falling from his lips like a punch to the gut.  Stiles watched, confused, as Derek took a deep breath in and took a shaky step forward then back again.  “You’re not- you can’t be.  Who are you?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. wake

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry about the character deaths. They're all pre-story/you find out about them right away.
> 
> NOTE ABOUT THE SEQUEL: This was originally written as a stand alone fic so you can enjoy it without worrying about the second story. The sequel however will tie in directly to this story so this should be read first.

Stiles breathed in the crisp forest air.  His chest hurt like he had been hollowed out, like those long nights after the nogitsune where all he could do was stare up at his ceiling and wonder if he was awake.  The sun was spotting through the leaves above him and Stiles tried to remember why he was outside.

He was back home after finishing his last year of grad school at UCLA.  He didn’t know why he bothered to come back though.  Scott hadn’t talked to him since high school.  Kira’s family moved back to New York.  Malia hated him after their third breakup.  Lydia washed her hands of Beacon Hills the moment she got her MIT acceptance letter.  And his dad.  Stiles knew his dad was the reason he returned.  Stiles still had to settle things with the property and put fresh flowers on his grave. 

And it was as if there was only a Beacon in Beacon Hills when he was home.  Stiles thunked his head back on the tree and tried to remember the night’s events.  He had gotten smashed at the Jungle, first time back there with a valid ID, had stumbled into the alley with some stranger because drunk hookups were a thing he partook in semi regularly now.  Which was of course when his hook up turned out to be a creature of the night ready to gut him and drink his blood.  Or something like that.  He could only assume because he up and blasted that thing to hell the moment it got its teeth in him. 

Stiles had been diving deeper in to the magic arts of an emissary ever since his father died.  It took little effort to turn the thing to dust.  He must have stumbled out to the woods afterwards. 

Stiles groaned, his head pounding from the magic and alcohol hangover.  Based on the sun it couldn’t have been more than ten in the morning.  He was in desperate need of a bacon double cheese burger and a heaping side of curly fries.  He patted his jeans down for his wallet, which was there, and his phone, which was smashed to pieces. 

“Aw, fuck,” he said, standing and brushing the dirt off his butt.  He hadn’t broken his phone in two years so of course he would the day after he came back to Beacon fucking Hills.  Now he just had to figure out where the hell he was. 

There was a crunch of leaves in the distance.  He didn’t exactly hear it, more that he just knew it happened.   His magic worked as a warning system of certain supernatural creatures.  It was most helpful in this hell pit.

The crunch happened again, a pull of attention that tingled under his skin like a low reverberation.  A growl.  A wolf.

Stiles did not have the brain capacity to deal with Scott right now or one of his stupid betas. 

The crunching grew closer, faster and picking up speed until Stiles could physically hear the sound of feet pounding against the forest floor.  Stiles rubbed at his eyes.  It was somebody he knew and trusted enough not to kill him on sight, otherwise it would feel different, so he wasn’t afraid of an omega.  Still, he didn’t want to do this first thing after waking up.  His head was still ringing from the hangover.

The footfalls stopped.  The world around him became almost unnaturally still.  It was puzzling, like someone was holding their breath.  Stiles took his hand away from his eyes and turned towards the thrum of _wolf_.

Derek stood there, about as far away as the first time Stiles had ever seen him in the woods.  Just as still.  But he looked wild.  His eyes were blown, his mouth hanging open just the slightest, his shoulder hunched up and back as if he were posturing and unsure of himself rather than the ball of tension he had once been, nor the relaxed guy he had finally been able to become with Braeden.

And Derek just stood there, staring at Stiles like he was a ghost.

“Dude, I know it’s been a while but you don’t have to look at me like you’re that surprised I’m hung over in the woods.  It’s practically a tradition at this point.”

“ _Stiles_?” Derek whispered, the name falling from his lips like a punch to the gut.  Stiles watched, confused, as Derek took a deep breath in and took a shaky step forward then back again.  “You’re not- you can’t be.  Who are you?”

Stiles squinted his eyes at Derek, checking for damage.  “Dude, are you okay?  Are you _on_ something?  I don’t see a bullet wound.”  Stiles took a few steps forward but from the way Derek tensed up more, he thought it may be best to just stay put.  “Look, man, I know we’re not friends but you also know I’m the best bet to treat you if you’re hurt, so.”

They stared at each other for a long time, or what felt like forever.  It might have been only a minute or two.  Something in Derek’s body language told him to stay still, so he did.  Maybe Derek _was_ high.  It’s not like Liam didn’t figure out how to lace his drinks and roll an aconite joint the moment he figured out the normal shit wouldn’t affect him. 

More tingling came from Stiles’s left, another wolf he knew was approaching.  He looked over when they got near and tensed up, a perfect mirror of Derek’s body language.

Erica froze in her tracks when they made eye contact.

“Holy shit,” Stiles cursed, taking an unconscious step back.  He darted his eyes between her and Derek.  “Did you get into some black magic when I was gone?  What the hell!” 

Because Erica was dead.  She’d been the first of a domino effect that tore him apart.  And now she stood before him, an adult and a bigger bombshell than her high school self could ever compare to, whole and alive.

“Stiles?” she asked, the same disbelieving tone and gut wrenching sadness in her voice as Derek’s.

Stiles opened his mouth to talk.  You’re alive.  You’re alive and all grown up.  You’re here.

“But you’re dead.”

Those weren’t his words, they were Derek’s.  Stiles snapped his eyes back to Derek, who was looking firmly at Stiles, not Erica. 

“What?” Stiles asked.  He was too hungover for this.  He told them as much, clutching his throbbing head.  “Will someone please explain to me what is going on?”

“Stiles,” Derek said, sounding broken.  “You’re dead.”

Stiles laughed, although something about Derek’s tone of voice told him he wasn’t lying.  “Since when?” Stiles asked.

“One year, four months, and twelve days,” Derek recited. 

And there it was again, the lack of lie.  It was too quick, too hurt, too much like he’s been counting the days.  It couldn’t be a lie. 

“Why.. what?” Stiles scrunched his forehead trying to grasp what the hell was going on.  “You’re trying to tell me I’m _dead_.  What year is it?”

“2020,” Erica replied.

“May 27th, 2020,” Stiles said, which was todays date, at least it was when he passed out this morning.

“Yeah,” Erica said, her stance growing apprehensive.

“So, I didn’t lose any time.  I just got home from school yesterday.  There’s no way I’ve been dead for a year.”

“Stiles-,”

“NO!” he snapped, throwing his arm out and pointing at Erica.  “You don’t get to talk because _you’ve_ been dead since you were sixteen!”   His voice reverberated through the stillness of the forest, a sub-audible echo that hit his bones.  The sky above felt too oppressive. 

The silent standoff lasted for another few minutes.  Then Stiles’s stomach growled.  “Maybe we should take this somewhere else,” Erica suggested, “Gather the gang, do some research, and get some lunch.”

Stiles shifted his weight, unnerved by the situation.  “Yeah, okay.”  He could be a rational human being, even with a hangover and a dead girl nearby.  He’s had weirder moments.

Erica turned to Derek, a concerned look on her face.  “Do you want to stick with us, or?”

For the first time, Derek’s eyes left Stiles to meet Erica’s.  It was apparently all the prompting he needed to dash away. 

“Jesus, what’s up with him,” Stiles muttered, earning him the brunt force of Erica’s glare.

“Other than you crawling back from the dead?” she snapped.

Stiles shrugged.  “If I really have been dead for a year I still don’t see why he’d be that freaked out.  I’d be the fourth person to come back.  Not including yourself.”

“You don’t see _why_?” Erica hissed, storming over.  “Stiles, what the hell?”

Stiles took a step back as she came closer, throwing his hands up in surrender.  “Hey, don’t get mad at me.  I’m not entirely convinced I’m not still asleep.”

Erica growled.  Stiles let her manhandle him, leading him away from his faithful tree-bed.  Home sweet home, right?

On the way to their destination, he couldn’t help but watch Erica and hold in a panic attack.  His imagination wouldn’t have been able to come up with her.  She had aged.  Even now he could only image the 16 year old who went through a dramatic transformation, how she postured him in the halls.  She was different, too.  Her red lipstick was darker, her curls softer, her clothes more relaxed.  She was real, he told himself.  She was a person who had lived the last nine years. 

Erica led him to a large Victorian styled house that felt oddly familiar.  He knew this area.  “Is this…” Stiles trailed off in disbelief.

“Is this what?” Erica asked, holding in her anger.  It was the hurt kind of anger.  She was just as confused as he was and she wanted to lash out because of it. 

Stiles looked back to the house, walking up the porch, trailing his fingers over the white painted wood.  The door was a cherry red that pulled old memories from the start of junior year of high school.  It was the color Derek had used to paint over the alpha’s symbol.  Stiles opened the door, shoveling his anxiety into a box in the back of his head. 

The house was lived in.  The couch had a blanket slung over it, crumpled from recent use.  There were a few empty cups sitting around and someone’s bag was by the coffee table and a pair of shoes under a chair.  There was a coat rack with a familiar black leatherjacket, along with a few other jackets that weren’t as familiar but reminded him of people by their color and cut, but none of those people would be here.

“Is this Derek’s house?” Stiles asked in disbelief. 

“Yeah,” Erica said, wary and almost offended by the comment.  “You should know this.”

Stiles frowned, following her into the kitchen.  On the way he froze, catching sight of a photograph.  It was of the pack: Derek, Isaac, Boyd, and Erica, smiling at the beach, and clearly out of high school.  His stomach dropped, and he knew.  He _knew_ without being able to grasp the whole mechanics behind it. 

This _was_ real.

But this wasn’t his reality.

Stiles collapsed onto the stool that was pulled up to the kitchen bar.  It was a nice kitchen.  It was weird.  Stiles had expected to return, finish the paperwork to make his childhood home no longer his house, and leave to never look back. 

He wasn’t expecting to find a whole different Beacon Hills.

Erica texted what Stiles could only assume was the pack and pulled out a tupperware of leftover meatloaf.  She stuck it in the microwave and the scent was intoxicating.  It smelled like… “That smells like my mom’s,” he said, heart aching.

Erica frowned at him, almost guilty, it wasn’t a look Stiles could place.  She looked sad.  “Yeah.  Derek makes it every Thursday.”

“Derek knows my mom’s recipe?”

Erica’s frown deepened.  “Yeah.”

Stiles frowned, waiting for the microwave to ding.  Erica placed the meatloaf in front of him with a fork and steak sauce.  Stiles looked at it blankly.  Most people ate meatloaf with ketchup.  Stiles never did, but Stiles also never ate meatloaf with anybody besides his dad.  And this was _his brand_.  This isn’t something she should have known about him.

“Erica?” Stiles asked, after pouring the sauce on the meatloaf and picking up his fork. 

“Yeah?”

“How did.. how did I die?”

His fork hovered over the meatloaf waiting for an answer.  He couldn’t meet her eyes.  It was somebody else’s life he was asking after. 

“How did _I_?” she replied. 

He looked up, biting his lower lip.  He wondered if Erica had figured it out, that he never died, that he wasn’t _theirs_.  She was smart though.  She knew he wasn’t… right.

“You and Boyd were kidnapped by the Alpha pack and you tried to fight your way out and Kali killed you.”

Her breath caught, her own memories swelling to the surface behind her eyes.  “I was never kidnapped,” Erica said.

“And the Darach?” Stiles asked before taking a small bite of meatloaf.  It tasted just as he remembered making it for his dad, but it somehow also tasted like sand on his tongue, like he was tasting something he wasn’t supposed to and it was souring the experience.

“You figured her out pretty quick when she seduced Derek.  We took her down before she got too strong.”

He nodded, as if it made sense.  He wasn’t sure it did.  He wanted to know what else was different.  He wanted to know why he was here.  If studying magic taught him anything, it was that there was always a reason, a flow like the ley lines beneath the earth.  He was born near the nemeton, drowned for the nemeton, and reborn from the nogitsune who had been trapped in the nemeton.  And all a nemeton truly was, was where the ley lines clustered.  Stiles was a cluster of magic after the world he had lived through.  He must have followed the magic without even realizing.

“Erica, how did I die?” he repeated.

She looked at him for a long minute: remembering, contemplating, gathering courage.  He still couldn’t read that sad look on her face.  Then he felt the under-the-skin tingle that told him a wolf was growing closer.  Erica turned her head to the front hall and moments later Isaac and oh my god was that _Allison_ , rushed through the entrance, staring at Stiles in disbelief.

She was beautiful.  She’d gotten bangs and her hair was straight and feathered out.  She looked so sure and confident even in the trembling of her hand as she stared at Stiles.  Tears and guilt was building behind his breastbone and she was twitching for her bow.

“Allison?” he asked, her name slipping out in a whispered heartbreak.  She died because of him.  Because he was the weak link when the nemeton was knocking on doors, waiting for somebody to open.  He had been separated physically from the nogitsune at the time but he had still felt its chaotic desires, its greed and glee when Allison was stabbed. 

Then Boyd entered behind them and Stiles couldn’t help the tears.  The last time he saw Boyd it was as he was dying, forgiving Derek with his last breaths.  

“Who are you?” Allison demanded, her hands whipping to pull out her side arm in an easy movement.  A lethal weapon was pointed at him and he didn’t so much as flinch.  “Who the _hell_ are you because you don’t get to come here and wear our friend’s face!”

Through his own tears he could see the wetness trailing down her face.

Boyd placed a hand on her shoulder.  “He smells real.” 

“Does Derek know?” Allison asked Erica, keeping her weapon up.

“Derek found him.”

“Well shit,” Isaac muttered.  Isaac, who Stiles hadn’t seen since halfway through Junior year and he moved to France. 

And Boyd, who was dead.  And Allison, who was dead.  And Erica, who was dead.

He couldn’t hold back the anxiety any longer.  His head was spinning, breath growing short.  One in Two out he told himself, but that didn’t change the way the air caught in his throat going in in in in in.  The world around him slowed and sped and tilted until hands around his biceps pulled him to their body, dropping to the floor.  A weight of someone’s palm against his chest, holding him down and anchoring him, the rhythm of his heart beating against their hand, their heartbeat bouncing off his back, a perfect symmetry of an erratic tempo.

Words in his ear.  It’s okay, it’s okay.  Shh.  You’re safe.  The promise of comfort and compassion just in the soothing tone of a broken voice trying so hard to be whole.  Trying so hard _for him_.

Stiles gasped, gaining control of his breathing, slowing his heart, taking in his surroundings and the arms encompassing him.  Stiles turned his head to stare in confusion and amazement. 

“Derek?”

Stiles turned more in Derek’s grip, caught up in the terrified look in the man’s light eyes, blue and green and gold.  Derek reached up and caressed Stiles’s cheek, wiping away some of the tears.  Stiles pulled back, confused.  Derek flinched.  They scrambled apart, Stiles standing on shaky legs.

“Thanks,” he muttered.  Derek nodded, standing gracefully and… defeated.  Stiles took in the pack, standing around in various levels of shock and mourning.  “Is this everybody?” Stiles asked dubiously.  He directed the question to Erica.  She seemed to have her head on her shoulders better than the rest.   Erica nodded.  “What happened to Scott?”

Derek’s head snapped up, alert and even more confused.

“Oh, Stiles,” Erica said sadly.  “How different were our lives?”

“What is she talking about,” Allison demanded, hand still twitching on her cross-bow. 

Stiles backed up, frowning.  He looked between them all, eyes landing on Erica.  She understood.  Of all of them, she understood.

“Erica, what are you talking about,” Allison repeated. 

“This is Stiles, real Stiles.  Just, not our Stiles,” Erica said. 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Isaac scoffed.  “Is this resurrected Stiles or is this some new monster with Stiles’s face.”

Stiles sat down on the nearest seat, all the twisting of his mind and body of the day exhausting him.  “It means exactly what she said.  I’m not who you think I am.”  Stiles looked down at his hands.  “I should try and find a way to get back.  Is Deaton around?”

“Get back where?” Derek asked.  That was desperation, Stiles was sure. 

“To my own world.  I don’t belong here.”  His earlier thoughts came back to him.  “Although I must be here for a reason.”

“Where did you _come from_ ,” Allison persisted.

Stiles just shrugged.  “Someplace parallel to this.”

“A different dimension?” Boyd asked.

“Or something like it,” Stiles said.

“God, what the hell are we going to tell his dad?” Isaac whispered.

Stiles snapped his eyes up with shock and desperate hope.  “My dad’s alive?”  He could see the shock on their faces.  Stiles scrambled to his feet, darting to the door.  Boyd wrapped his arms around him before Stiles could reach the exit.  “Let me go!  I have to see him!” he pleaded. 

“Stiles, _no_ ,” Boyd said.  “Not until you’ve calmed down and we’ve taken stock of the situation.”

Boyd, always the voice of reason.  Stiles took a deep breath and relaxed in Boyd’s grip until the other man let go. 

“Are you going to call Deaton?” Stiles asked.  He caught Derek’s eye again, who looked on the edge of tears.  He dashed away without another word.

“Seriously?  Again?  Why does he keep disappearing like that?”

“Seriously?” Boyd scoffed.  Stiles just turned to him with a scrunched brow.  It truly didn’t make sense to him.  Boyd searched his face and the mask of anger fell to disbelief.  “You really don’t know.”

“Know what?” Stiles asked.  He didn’t like being kept in the dark.  _He_ was the stranger here, surrounded by ghosts.  “Will someone, please, just treat me like a newbie and tell me who Stiles was to you, because I am not your Stiles.”

The silence was stifling.  They looked at him like he was a monster, a wolf in sheep’s clothing just waiting to turn tables and attack them.  He’s not their Stiles.  So he must not be Stiles at all.  Allison fiercely wiped away a tear and turned on her heal.  She ran up the stairs, Erica quick to follow with one last glance at Stiles.  Boyd diverted his gaze and pulled out his phone.  “I’ll call Deaton,” he said, slipping out the front door.  There was a silent line of communication between Boyd and Isaac before the door shut: keep an eye on him.

Isaac walked over to where Stiles sat, his leg shaking minutely as he stared Stiles down.

“You smell human,” he commented.  “But, more like Deaton.  You have that extra tang of magic about you.”  Isaac shrugged and took a seat on the couch.  “Stiles smelled the same, exactly the same.  I don’t think an imposter could have faked that.”

Stiles hummed and bit at the quick of his thumb nail. 

“But you smell different, too,” Isaac continued.  “Derek’s much better at reading emotions in scent, but you have this underlying hurt, I guess, and anger, that Stiles never had.”

Stiles huffed.  Figured.  “Yeah, well, in my life I don’t exactly talk to any of you anymore.  I’m a bitter, lonely old man and I’m only twenty-four.”  Stiles forced himself to stop picking at his nail bed.  He looked up to Isaac in earnest.  “How’s my dad?”

Isaac shrugged.  “You did die only a year ago.  But we make sure he’s eating healthy and not drinking too much.”

Stiles gave him a sad smile.  As good as could be expected.  Better, even.  If he had died before his dad back home, there would have been no one around to take care of his old man.  Stiles felt the sting of tears surfacing.  “Sorry, I just,” he wiped at his eyes, taking a deep breath. 

Isaac just shifted uncomfortably.  “So,” he said after some silence, “what am I up to in your weird parallel dimension?”

Stiles let out a wet laugh, a little hysterical.  “In France, last I heard.  You moved there after… you moved there back in Junior year of high school, between semesters.”

“Why?” he asked, sounding like France was the last place he would have gone. 

Stiles looked up to him and wondered how much of his life he should tell.  These people didn’t need that heart ache.  They didn’t live these tragedies.  “What’s your relationship with Allison?” he asked instead.

Isaac looked up the stairs.  Stiles could only assume there were guest rooms up there and Allison and Erica were occupying one of them.  “We dated back in high school.  She was my first love, you know.  I had crushes on other people before she moved to town, sure, but our relationship was that whirlwind of teenage angst.  We broke up when we decided to go to different colleges and just never got back together.  We grew up and just aren’t those people anymore.  She’s a good friend.  I’ll always love her, in my own way.  You know?”

Stiles nodded.  “Did you guys deal with the nogitsune?”

“The what now?” Isaac asked, eyebrow raised in a truly impressive look of skeptic confusion.

Stiles frowned.  That’s a no.  The nogitusne happened because Stiles, Scott, and Allison sacrificed themselves to find their parents.  Because Jennifer took them.

“But you did deal with the alpha pack and the darach,” he muttered to himself.  There had to be a lynch pin here somewhere.  “But Erica and Boyd were never kidnapped.”

“They _what_?”

“After the Kanima-”

“What the _fuck_ is a kanima?” Isaac asked, even more confused than before.

Stiles frown deepened.  “Derek never bit Jackson?”

“Jackson?  Jackson _Whittemore_?” Isaac laughed in disbelief.  “No!  Why the hell would Derek bite Jackson?” 

Stiles shook his head.  “I never asked.  I assume because Jackson was a dick and Derek was hoping the bite wouldn’t take.  Once Jackson found out that he could become stronger he pushed all the right buttons.”  He sighed, biting his thumb again.  “Why do you think he didn’t bite Jackson here?”

“Because you helped him pick his betas,” Isaac said without a second’s pause, like it was the most obvious thing and the fact that Stiles didn’t know this was alarming. 

Stiles pulled his thumb away from his teeth again.  “I helped _Derek_ ,” he said in deadpan disbelief, “with his pack.” 

Isaac’s eyes frowned despite his attempt at a reassuring smile.  “You helped all of us.”

The lynch pin had to be further back then.  Maybe this whole world was slightly off.  Something changed before he was born.  Maybe there’s a huge series of events that are just different, no one point that split their timelines.  Maybe- Stiles remembered Erica’s voice saying his name when he asked about Scott.

“Scott,” Stiles whispered to himself.  He looked up to Isaac in dread.  “What happened to Scott McCall?”

Stiles watched Isaac’s expression crumble.  “What happened to _your_ Scott McCall?”

“A lot of things,” Stiles spat.  “Answer the question, Isaac.”

Isaac looked down at his hands and bit his bottom lip.  “He died.  In the woods.  I remember the news going around school.  There was an announcement in all the classes during first period.  It wasn’t until later I learned it was because the bite didn’t take when Peter had attacked him in the woods.  You told me that’s what would happen to me if the bite didn’t work.  I got it anyway.”

Stiles heart beat triple time in his chest, the verges of a panic attack closing in on the edges of his vision.  He could picture it now.  The guilt of brining Scott out to find Laura Hale’s body, working with Derek to find the killer, the alpha, to find Peter.  No Scott meant no star crossed romance with Allison.  No trap in the school.  Stiles never would have said Derek was the murderer after the first time. 

Scott not turning meant Jackson never found out about werewolves, so he never would have pushed to be one.  He probably never broke up with Lydia. 

“What happened to Lydia Martin?”

Isaac shrugged.  “Graduated top of the class and is now doing NASA stuff I think.”

Lydia must never have been attacked by Peter which means..

“And Peter Hale?”

“Buried under this house, which is kinda creepy.”

Stiles took a deep breath.  Peter was never resurrected.  Lydia never learned she was a Banshee.  Scott never bit Liam.  The alpha pack probably went down entirely different if they were only after Derek and not Scott’s potential. 

“Kate Argent?”

“Also dead.  Peter killed her.”

“And she never came back?”

Isaac gave him a strange look.  “She _died_.”

“She turned into a were-jaguar,” Stiles supplied, exhaling sharply. 

“Shit,” Isaac said, like he was just realizing how sucky Stiles’s life was.  “You’re from the gritty universe.”

Stiles barked out a laugh.  He was, that was a perfect analogy.  “Yep.  You guys are all sunshine and rainbows compared to my life it seems.”

Stiles still had a million questions.  What happened to Cora and Malia and Victora Argent and Meredith and Parrish.  Did Kira ever even come here if they never dealt with the nogitsune?  He didn’t have time to voice anymore before Boyd entered telling them Deaton would be over in ten and Erica came downstairs to force Stiles to finish his lunch.

“I could hear your stomach all the way upstairs, Stiles.  I don’t care if you’re a figment of my imagination, I’m feeding you.”

Stiles had to smile, though he was still dazed by all the revelations he’s had.  He thought back to Scott over his meal. 

This wasn’t just a puzzle.  Scott was dead.  Sure, they had fallen out of favor over the course of time, but so do most friends.  Especially when one was an alpha werewolf and the other blamed him for his father’s death.  But that didn’t mean they weren’t still friends on some level.  It didn’t mean that all those years they were inseparable went away. 

Over a plate of meatloaf Stiles grieved for the Scott he knew before the bite and the Scott this Stiles never got to know after.  It was probably the most profound meal he’s ever eaten. 

There came a knock from the door.  None of the werewolves seemed surprised, probably heard him half a mile off.  Stiles’s assumption that it was Deaton was proved correct when Boyd opened the door and the emissary turned vet walked in.  Stiles stood, his meal settling uneasily in the pit of his stomach.  Deaton looked over him, mouth slightly open.  The level of emotion on the man’s face was minimal, but more than Deaton ever normally let slip.

“Hey Deats, what’s happening?” Stiles asked, needing to break the silence somehow.  Deaton’s look was too much for him to handle. 

“Stiles,” he said with wonder.  Deaton placed his bag upon the floor and walked forward, already examining Stiles if the way he squinted his eyes slightly was any indicator.  Stiles stayed silent as Deaton did his thing.  Deaton reached out, pausing to meet Stiles’s eye.  “Do you mind?” he asked.  Stiles shook his head.   The vet looked Stiles over in detail: his eyes, his moles, his fingernails, his teeth.  He went back to his bag and pulled out some powders and solutions and rub a salve on Stiles’s forearm and some other things.  Stiles didn’t need to ask what things were, he knew.  It was clear the pack didn’t, however.  Isaac kept wrinkling his nose, trying to sniff out the different ingredients and Erica’s brow furrowed every time Deaton tried something new, her mouth opening slightly on occasion with an intake of air, readying for a question she never asked. 

“Well,” Deaton said after a while, taking a step and giving Stiles a once over, “how did you get here?”

Stiles shrugged before running a hand over his tired eyes.  “I was drunk when it happened, to be honest.  I was attacked by something and I blasted it, next thing I know I’m waking up in the woods.”

Deaton hummed.  “Do you know what the creature was?”

Stiles shook his head.  “I remember,” he stopped to think about it, “he tried to bite me.  He might have, actually,” he trailed off.  He pulled at the collar of his shirt but there wasn’t any marking to indicate the thing sunk its teeth into him.  Stiles frowned.  He was fairly certain the thing bit him. 

“And you used magic while you were drunk?” Deaton said, a judging look over his features.

Stiles shrugged again.  “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

“Well,” Deaton said returning his things to his bag, “one thing’s for certain.”  He quietly put all his equipment away before catching the eye of everyone present.  He so did love his dramatic pauses.  Deaton looked at Stiles. He opened his mouth to speak but Stiles already knew this riddle.

“If the ley lines you should follow,” Stiles quoted, “and your dwelling at the end,”

“And find your presence has been hollowed,” Deaton continued.

“Your hereafter is to amend.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Okay well that was thoroughly creepy,” Erica said, crossing her arms nervously.  “What was that?  Some sort of doppelganger password?  Seriously.”

Deaton shook his head, eyes still trained on Stiles.  “You’re much more well versed in this than the Stiles from this time,” Deaton commented.

Stiles gave a sort of half smile, looking away.  “Doesn’t surprise me.”

Allison took a step between Stiles and Deaton.  “Are either of you going to tell us what’s going on,” she said crossly, not quite able to make Stiles’s eye.

“It’s simple really,” Deaton said.  “Stiles, this Stiles, was brought here from a different line of events.”

“But why?” Boyd asked.

Deaton gave them all a sad smile.  “To fix something.”


	2. grave

The thing is, no one knew what to do with him.  Stiles least of all knew where he should go.  He was a dead man walking.  Would people recognize him on the streets?  Should he stay hidden?  What do they tell his dad?  Where will he stay? 

Peter never had a problem stalking the town, but Stiles didn’t know how established he had been in this Beacon Hills.  Most people in his own time line knew him as the Sheriff’s son, poor boy, all alone.  He still had some anonymity, the town wasn’t _that_ small, but he would get looks from the older residents who knew his father, and if he ever passed a deputy... they all knew, even the new ones who had never met Sheriff Stilinski. 

After almost a year and a half, would they have all forgotten his face? 

Stiles let himself be ushered by Isaac down the hall leading away from the living room and kitchen.  “We’re just going to talk things over,” Isaac told him, “and seeing you is kind of,” he grimaced, “distressing.”  Isaac opened a large oak door to reveal a good sized den, walled with books.  It smelled faintly of ash.  Many of the books had scorch marks on them.  “You, er, well, our Stiles used to spend a lot of time in here, so it still kind of smells like you.  No one else much goes in it.  It’ll be less distracting if your scent is, I don’t know…” he trailed off.

“Where it belongs?” Stiles offered, running his hands over the titles, careful not to actually touch. 

“Yeah.”

Stiles turned his head back to Isaac.  “Thanks.”

Isaac just nodded and closed the door, leaving Stiles alone with the old Hale library.  These were books Stiles had never seen.  Peter had converted everything to a laptop and the only books Stiles had seen were in that vault under the school.  He wondered if his Derek had saved them, had stashed them somewhere, too valuable to show the world, too burnt to keep with the other relics of his family.  He wondered if this Stiles had read them all. 

Stiles wandered over to the desk.  He brushed his fingers against the wood, rubbing off the dirt.  It was neat and tidy, a thin layer of dust on the top.  No one came in here, no one touched this place.  He pulled out the seat and plopped down, looking the piece of furniture over.  It must have been his.  He wondered what this Stiles had done.  Stiles had gone to University of San Fran for undergrad, studying criminology and psychology.  He wanted to be like his dad.  He wanted to help in an official capacity when supernatural shit went down. 

He had planned on graduating and then joining the academy, but that track changed.  His dad died.  And he just couldn’t be a part of something that would remind him that much of his father, at least not yet.  So he applied for grad school and got into UCLA for what was just dubbed Classics.  There was a secret class set under the program for the type of things Deaton knew. 

This Stiles never did that.  This Stiles had pack, stability.  This Stiles had his dad. 

The top drawer was full of office supplies: pens, pencils, a stapler, three-hole-punch, some rubber bands and paper clips, a highlighter.  The middle had some old notebooks crammed in there, the kind Stiles used for school.  Sure enough, most of them looked like they were from high school.  There were notes on chemistry with stick figure drawings of blowing Harris up, Lydia’s notebook with all those damned tree drawings, a page of hearts and wolf doodles that only the other Stiles must have done because it was his handwriting but not something Stiles remembered.  There was one from college, psychology notes.  Nothing on crime and law though.  One had a USF sticker on it.  Good to know he had the same alma mater. 

The bottom drawer was locked.  He thought about picking the lock but decided against it.  It wouldn’t make a good impression if he were found breaking into something in his first hours as an un-dead imposter friend.  Stiles leaned back and ran a hand over his face.  He was so goddamned tired.  This was officially the worst hookup he’d ever had, he thought dryly.  The humor left him quickly.  Stiles stared up at the ceiling, his mind wandering, trying too hard not to get overwhelmed by the situation. 

There came a knock at the door.  Stiles looked over as it creaked open and Allison entered.  Her eyes were still raw with fresh tears.  She must have cried again while they were talking without him.  “Hey,” he offered. 

She gave a small smile, looking him over and hovering by the door.  “You’re going to come with me,” she said, fidgeting with her crossbow at her side, although her words were kind.  “We need to give Derek some time to adjust and he can’t do that with you here.”  Stiles nodded, it made sense although he still wasn’t sure why Derek was affected the worst out of all of them.  “And the pack needs to be here to help him.”

“You’re not pack?” Stiles asked.

“I am,” she said, finally venturing closer to him.  She took a seat in the lounge chair facing him.  “But I’m not a werewolf, so it’s different, you know?”

Stiles shrugged.  “I guess.”  He did know.  He remembered what it was like being a part of Scott’s makeshift pack.  He remembered Scott and Isaac and Derek and how they always knew when someone was in danger.  He remembered how Malia counted on him for things he couldn’t give.  He remembered the bond between Liam and Scott once Liam finally settled into himself.  He remembered the other betas Scott brought in, the omegas without a home, Ethan five years after his brother’s death, Liam’s prep school rival when Satomi passed, a girl with asthma worse than Scott’s he met at college.  Stiles remembered watching from the outside when he lost that connection as a human member of the pack, when he was the stray. 

“I live by myself now, I got an apartment just outside of town to make my commute to work easier,” Allison continued.  “But I called my mom and asked if you could stay in my old room for a while and she agreed.”

“Your mom?” Stiles couldn’t stop himself from asking. 

“Yeah?” Allison said, pulling back a little, remembering this wasn’t the same man she knew.

“Sorry, nothing.  What uh, what about my dad?”

Allison stood, wiping her hands on her pants in a definitive motion.  “We’re going to call him and have him meet you at my parent’s house.  Tomorrow.  We only need so many people freaking out at one time.”

Stiles nodded.  He would leave it to them.  He wanted to see his dad now, though.  It had been so long.  He wanted his dad.

Stiles had to remind himself that he wasn’t the same man.  He blinked back tears and stood to follow Allison out. The betas had disappeared from the main part of the house when he walked through.  It was okay, he thought.  They needed space.  They needed time. 

He did too, a voice said in the back of his head, pushed deep inside his box of anxiety just waiting to overflow again.  He did, but he could handle it.  He knew how to handle things.  It was the only thing he knew how to do.  He had so much practice.

“Can we,” he started as he stepped outside.  He looked at Allison’s car, a used black sedan.  She turned back to him, her face asking him to continue.  “Can we go to the cemetery?”

“I…,” Allison hesitated.  She looked between Stiles and her car, her keys in the palm of her hand.  “Yeah,” she said, not looking at him, “sure.”

The drive was silent, neither of them sure of what to say.  She pulled into the cemetery lot and parked.  He could feel her looking at him as he tapped his thumb against his knee, looking out the window and unsure of himself.  He finally clicked his seatbelt and climbed out the car.  “You can come, if you want,” he threw over his shoulder.  He was more than a few steps out when he heard the driver’s door open and shut, Allison trailing him through the gates and the walk paths. 

This was familiar.  For all its change in occupants the graveyard stayed the same.  He easily found his mother’s headstone.  The family plot.  The grave marker next to it, however, didn’t say his father’s name, but his own.  He sat on his own grave.  There was a boy beneath him with his body and his mind, and a different set of sorrows.  Stiles leaned forward and traced his name on the gravestone. 

“So I guess you all know my first name now,” Stiles said. 

Allison sat down next to him, room enough there was no fear of touching him.  She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the headstone.  “I’ve known your first name since we were seventeen,” she commented.  Her voice shook.  Allison needed the same space as the betas, but she was strong so she took up watching over Stiles while the rest of them got their heads together.  Stiles had to admire her for that.  “We were best friends, you know.”

Stiles looked at her.  The sun hit her hair and her face was half hidden in her arms.  Her eyes were wet and cheeks blotchy, and she was beautiful. 

“Close your eyes,” he said.  She narrowed them, suspicious.  “It’ll make it easier, not looking at me.  Close your eyes.  Then tell me, someone new, all about your friend.  Introduce me to him.  You brought me to his grave, after all.”

Allison closed her eyes, burying her face further into her arms before taking a big breath.  She leaned her head back, wiping at the tears and letting the sun hit her eyelids.  “I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.

So Stiles did it for her.  “You dated my friend, Scott.  You were perfect for him.  But he was a werewolf and your family was hunters, so it led to some Romeo and Juliet story.”

“I’m sorry I never met him,” she said.  “You used to tell me about him all the time.  He sounded like someone I would have liked.”

Stiles had a clear picture of her, dying in Scott’s arms, saying I love you I love you I love you because she was so scared and so brave.

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed.  “How did we become friends?  Because I knew you because of Scott.”

Allison, with her eyes still closed, turned her head away and squeezed herself tighter.  “I had just learned about werewolves.  And then I was there to see my aunt die, and you were there to help kill her killer.  And I knew you went to school with me, but I had never really talked to you.  But I just, I needed someone who understood what was going on in my life.  So the next day during lunch I sat with you.  You ate alone, on the other end of the table from Boyd, ever since your friend had died.  You were so shocked.  I remember that you accidentally threw your apple behind you and it hit Jackson.  He was so angry.”  She laughed a little at the memory.  “And we both knew that we both knew, so it was obvious as to why I was there.  And we started talking.  You were so… weird, to be honest.  You threatened me to not hurt Derek again, that he’d been through enough, told me that my aunt was crazy, and then started to console me about her death, that I shouldn’t have had to see that and that you understood what loss was like. 

“My parents hated that we were friends, since you were helping Derek out so they thought you were a bad influence.  But you ended up being a really good influence for them.  When Gerard showed up, you kept steering them back to what our code said, what was moral and ethical versus what Gerard was doing.  He, my grandfather hurt you because you were keeping Derek’s location secret.  My dad was appalled.  He had no right to lay a hand on you.  When we figured out why Gerard wanted an alpha, we cut ties with him, helped you and the betas keep safe.  His cancer took him a few years later.

“You were oddly really supportive about me going through my hunter training.  You thought it would only help in the end, because you knew I had a smart head on my shoulders.”

“You do,” Stiles said.  “I’m sure you helped this pack many times.”

“What did I do where you come from?” she asked.

Stiles stood, brushing his hand along the top of his gravestone.  “I’m not sure you want to know that, Allison.”

“So you can know about here but I can’t know about there?” she protested, standing to join him. 

“Well,” he said, placing a parting touch to his mother’s grave before turning down the path, “I am here and you aren’t there.”

“Stiles-”

“What was it like dating Isaac?” he asked, cutting her off.  He pushed open the gate and headed to her car.  “How’d you guys get together?  I mean, you dated in my verse too, but I can guarantee it’s not the same line of events.”

“You’re deflecting,” she said, getting into the driver’s seat.

“Yes, I am.”

“I know you told Erica she died and that Isaac moved to France.  I don’t see what you can’t tell me,” she said bitterly, turning the engine. 

“Tell me about Isaac first.”

She sighed, annoyed.  “I guess it started this one time we helped you hide the werewolves from Gerard.  I ended up alone with Isaac and, I don’t know, we just sort of clicked.  We dated on and off for a year and half, breaking it off once we knew we were going to different schools.  We both knew our relationship wouldn’t stand the test of distance.  But it was good.  We were good.  Now tell me.”

“The reason why Isaac in my time moved to France was because you died.”

Allison nearly swerved off the road.  She pulled over quickly, her tires squealing against the pavement, and looked at him.

“You were seventeen.”

Allison blinked her wide doe eyes at him, no doubt thinking of all the years she wouldn’t have lived.  “Shit,” she whispered.

Stiles nodded.  “I’ve seen a lot of death, Allison.  You guys don’t really want to know my world.”

She stayed silent for a few more moments before putting the car in drive.

“What happened to my mom?” Allison asked in a soft voice after a while.

Stiles toyed with the hem of his shirt.  “She… she was bit, by – by an alpha.  She killed herself before she turned.”  From the corner of his eye, Stiles saw Allison wipe at her face.  “You didn’t take it well.”

“I can imagine,” she said.  Her grip on the steering wheel was knuckle white. 

Allison drove him to her old house, the one she had moved into back in high school.  Stiles hadn’t been there since that full moon when he thought Allison might have been hurt since Derek Hale took her home from that party, but she was fine.  She parked in the garage and ushered him into the living room where Chris and Victoria Argent waited. 

Chris looked good for his years, his beard trimmed and head balding.  Victoria’s hair was a more natural shade of auburn, reaching just past her chin.  They looked just as angry and stern as Stiles ever remembered them.  Yet there was something soft behind their eyes as they looked at him. 

“Stiles,” Victoria gushed, stepping forward quickly to pull him into a tight hug.  Stiles froze, arms up and eyes wide in surprise.  Of all the things he expected, this was not one of them. She pulled back, hands on his shoulders, and gave him a good once over.  “Jesus, it’s like you never…” she trailed off, then looked back to her husband. 

Chris stepped forward and clapped Stiles on the back, takings his wife’s spot, pulling him in for a hug.  “It’s good to have you here,” he pulled back, taking in Stiles’s clear look of shock, “even if you’re not exactly the same as the man we knew.” 

“Right,” Stiles said, the weight of Chris’s hand on his shoulder a foreign feeling.  There was no threat in the gesture, no warning, only warmth.  “Um.  Thanks.  For letting me stay here, that is.  I know I’m not… this isn’t a normal situation.”

“Deaton explained it to me.”

“As much as he explains anything,” Stiles interjected with a smirk. 

Chris nodded, an easy smile of something fond gracing his features.  “Exactly.  He asked me about the book we have, on the origin of werewolves.  I pulled it out for you.”

“Huh.”  Stiles followed Chris into the living room, giving Allison and her mother a wayward glance.  It was easier, speaking to the people he had known as an adult than the ghosts of people long past.  He felt bad about it, because he really suspected Allison was hurt more by how unfamiliar she was to him than that he was there at all.

The book was sitting in the living room.  It was one Scott had told him about, but he had never seen himself.  Looking at it now, it was familiar.  He hadn’t read this one, but one similar to it in age and, touching it, same material.  This one might contain the same words about what happened to him as he spoke earlier.

“Thanks,” Stiles said, glancing at him, before settling into the couch, quickly absorbed by the intricate illuminations and old ink drawings.  The book title was in Latin.  Stiles bit at the quick of his thumb, turning the pages over.  “There might be something in here about getting back to my own line.”

He supposed he should be looking for the reasons he was here, not the ways to return, but he didn’t want to be here.  He didn’t want to wade through all these ghosts.  Except his dad.  He wanted to see his dad.  Even still, it would feel like cheating to take this other boy’s father. 

At some point, Victoria placed a mug of coffee by his side, the right shade of caramel from creamer and sugar.  It gave him pause, reminding him of Erica and the steak sauce.  These people knew him better than anyone back home.  He took a cautious sip, then a greedy gulp when it turned out not too hot. 

It took him a while to parse through the stories about werewolves and druids to come across the passage he needed.  This portion of the book was in Gaelic.

 _If the ley lines you should follow, and your dwelling at the end, and find your presence has been hollowed, your hereafter is to amend_.

It wasn’t a prophecy or a spell, although it sounded as such, but rather part of a story.  It was long forgotten fairy tale of a knight who fell in love with a fairy, a knight who had been bathed in magic as a babe and could see the fey.  In it, Stiles read, the knight followed the fairy into a ring of mushrooms deep within the forest and when he stepped out again, his world had changed.  No one knew him, for in the fairy ring he had lived a lifetime in a mere second, and the town was now populated by the next generation.  Everyone he knew was dead.  But worse, in his time missing the town and in fact whole kingdom had been taken over by an evil usurper.  The once joyous town now lived in despair and fear and poverty.

The knight went back to his fairy love and asked her why she had led him into the fairy ring.  She told him she merely wanted to save him, that danger was coming and she had prevented him from living it.  But now the danger had passed and the world was cast in shadow, the knight went boldly into danger to make the world right again. 

The fairy maiden then cries to her father, for she only wanted her love safe.  It’s her father that says the words Stiles had first found in his studies at UCLA.  The knight followed her magic away and back to his own home, but it wasn’t his home any longer.  Magic had altered his fate, in order to fix the mistake of his fate being altered.  It was a paradox of sorts.  

Fate, Stiles thought, was a terrible translation.  His hereafter shouldn’t be determined by some flux of magic. 

There were plenty of stories of men who wandered into fairy rings, only to step out and age all the years they had lost, dying in a breath outside the fairy’s domain.  Perhaps he was only in a fairy realm. 

There was nothing in the book about different planes of existence.

The book Stiles had read in school that was similar to this had told different stories, myths of different kinds, origins to other creatures.  But these words the fairy maiden’s father spoke had found its way into many other books documenting the effect of ley lines in the world. 

A hand rested on his shoulder, causing him to jump slightly.  It had gone dark around him.  Chris Argent stood above him, a kind look about him.  “Come on, let’s get you something to eat and then get some rest.”

Stiles nodded.  “Did Allison leave?”

“Hours ago,” he replied shaking his head.  “You’ve always gotten too absorbed in things to notice your surroundings.”

Stiles remembered his bedroom wall full of string and print outs and paper clippings. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. 

Stiles had a hard time falling asleep that night.  After torturous small talk with the Argents, unable to make real conversation since he didn’t know them the way they expected him to, Stiles begged an early night.  He felt like he was trespassing in Allison’s old room and his thoughts kept pulling back to every flinch, every look of horror and hope, every whisper of his name he had seen and heard today. 

Stiles crawled out of bed and turned the light on.  The room was impeccably cleaned, no doubt Victoria came in regularly and all of Allison’s old things had been given assigned spots without a person to come in and use them.  There was a framed photo of the two of them at Lydia’s birthday party Junior year.  He could tell by the length of his hair. 

They looked happy.  _He_ looked happy.  Stiles couldn’t remember really feeling happy that year.  Not with the deaths of so many of his friends, the constant fear of his own body, the constant vigilance for the next threat.   Stiles had never been so afraid than that year. 

Stiles frowned.  He wondered what happened to Malia.  She was the few good moments he had, despite the fact their relationship didn’t have two legs to stand on.  He hoped she wasn’t just some coyote still living in the wild.

He put the picture down, finding more mementos of the friendship he never had.  There was a graduation card with his name signed pinned to a bulletin board, a Hawkeye figurine and mockingjay pin on a shelf Stiles didn’t doubt one second he bought her.  He sat down back on the bed, his head down in thought, arms resting on his legs.  He stayed that way until the sun began to peak through the window, desperately trying to think of what he was supposed to fix. 

At the sound of birds Stiles crawled back into bed, his eyes too heavy to keep him up any longer and he rested.  He dreamt of fairy men and the infinite tree rings of the giant stump in the woods.

He woke not many hours later to the smell of bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen downstairs.  Chris had lent him some spare clothes, so he got dressed and headed down for breakfast.  Victoria stood over the oven, scrambling eggs.  Her hair was neatly pinned back and makeup fresh. 

“Hey, Mrs. Argent,” Stiles said, the words awkward in his mouth. 

“You can call me Victoria, we went over that,” she said, delegating the eggs onto separate plates. 

“Still seems weird,” he admitted, taking a seat at the kitchen island.  “I never really knew you, in my line.”

She hummed, seemingly unconcerned by it all.  “Well, you’re not in your line, you’re in ours.  And for me it’s weird hearing you call me Mrs. Argent.  Although I should be thankful for the respect, finally,” she joked.  “I will admit, I’ll never be comfortable with the supernatural the way Allison is, but you were always there for her when I couldn’t for that very reason.  You can’t tell me that in your line you didn’t care about Allison’s well-being?”

Stiles remembered her death again, at the hands of the nogitsune.  But he remembered how he covered her in the library when the kanima attacked, or when he chased after her when she was nothing more than Scott’s date on the full moon.  How she scored him his date with Lydia Martin to the winter formal.  They had a potential for friendship neither of them seized, he could see that.  And her death haunted him for years.

“I cared about your daughter a lot.  I would protect her whenever I could,” he said truthfully. 

“Then it doesn’t matter what has changed, you’re still Stiles.”

Stiles shook his head.  It was your experiences that made you, and his were not the same as whoever used to occupy their lives.  

Chris came down soon afterwards, and the three of them ate breakfast over pleasantries.  Victoria had to leave for work, but Chris was home for the day.  Stiles wondered if the pack chose the Argents just to keep an eye on him.  When Victoria was out the driveway, Chris turned to Stiles with a serious face, cell phone in hand. 

“How do you think we should break this to your father?”    

Stiles gulped.  Suddenly he wasn’t so keen on seeing his dad.  He wanted to, god did he want to.  But it wouldn’t be him, not the same, not exactly.  How could he be? 

At Stiles’s silence, Chris stepped aside, dialing a number.  “I’ll just say something along the same lines Deaton did.” His heart thrummed inside his chest, Chris’s voice a distant haze.  “Sheriff?” Chris said into his phone.  Stiles felt his throat closing.  He breathed through his nose, the world blurring before him.  “Nothing bad, we don’t think, but very important.  There’s uh, such a thing as parallel universes,” Chris said, his own voice slightly incredulous even as he stared at Stiles, living proof.  “We may have a visitor who doesn’t know how he got here.”  There was a pause as Chris listened to the other end.  “Your son.”

There was silence although Stiles couldn’t be certain it wasn’t from his own hearing failing him.  His dad.  That was his dad on the phone.  His dad.  Stiles forced a deep breath down his lungs, gripping the counter with shaky hands.  His dad.

Chris tried to get his attention, going so far as to grab his face to make Stiles look at him.  “Look at me,” his lips were saying, but Stiles couldn’t really hear, not quite.  “You’re okay.  Breathe with me.  Breathe.”

And Stiles did, if barely.  His emotions had been going up and down so quickly in the past 24 hours it was wearing down at him.  All he wanted to do was crawl back into a bed and cry.  Before he had been able to fully compose himself the blare of sirens reached them, growing louder by the second.  Stiles whipped his head to the bay window.  He looked outside, desperately hopeful for that sound to be headed to them.

Seconds later the Sheriff’s car turned down the corner of the street, speeding up into the Argent’s driveway.  His father scrambled out of the car and Stiles’s breath caught again.  The sheriff banged on the door, which Chris was already at, opening for the law man.

“Where is he, where’s my-” his words cut off when he caught sight of Stiles, a blubbering mess only feet from him.

“Dad?”

In a blur of movement, the Sheriff grabbed hold of Stiles and held him in a tight embrace.  Stiles buried his wet eyes into his dad’s uniform, clutching at the back of his jacket like his life depended on it.   He was shaking with the force of his sobs and lack of air.  They were both shaking.  His dad whispered nothings into his ear, nothings that meant everything.  I’m here.  I’m here.  I’m not ever letting go.  It’s okay.  I love you.  Stiles.  Stiles.  My boy.  My son.  He said his true name quietly, a whisper in his ear and Stiles held on tighter.  My little słoneczko, my little sunshine.  The words his mother used to call him. 

“Dad,” he choked out again, sinking into the familiar feeling of warmth and love that he hadn’t had in years. 

The sheriff pulled back, holding Stiles’s face in his hands.  “You’re okay, kiddo.  You’re okay.”

It was sometime later over steaming cups of coffee that they were finally able to speak about it.  “I’m not your son,” Stiles said frankly and he poured his creamer.  “I know we’re… similar.  But I’m not the same child you lost.”

The sheriff frowned and reached over to dump the right amount of sugar into Stiles’s mug and stir it.  Stiles looked up, surprised and confused. 

“Listen.  You’re my son.  If you came here when my Stiles was still alive, it wouldn’t matter.  You’d both be my child.  You’re not a replacement, and you’re not _him_ , but you are still my son and I will not hear another word about it.”

“But-,” Stiles started but the sheriff held up his hand and gave a stern look.

“It wouldn’t matter if we had never met before and you looked nothing like him.  If you were my son with some other woman that I didn’t know about, waltzing back into my life, you would be my son.  If you were his long lost twin, you would still be my son.  If you happen to be from a parallel universe where everything was different since you were in high school, weird, but I’ll take it.” 

Stiles had cried himself out but that didn’t stop him from wiping at his eyes.  “Right,” he said, a smile breaking over his face despite himself.  “Right.”  Stiles examined his dad’s face.  It was older than he last saw it, aged more than it should have.  Deep stress wrinkles lined his face and his hair was almost all grey.  “I missed you,” he said.  He couldn’t help it.  Stiles quickly adverted his eyes, grabbing his coffee and taking a drink before he said anything else.

“I missed you, too.”

Stiles didn’t need to tell him that he died.  That he died almost four years ago because there was a supernatural threat and Scott couldn’t save him.  He didn’t need to know that his son was alone for so long.  Stiles could barely stand to know his dad was alone for not even a year and a half.

Chris was the one who brought them around to what they should do in terms of Stiles and the fact that as far as anyone’s concerned, he’s either dead or doesn’t exist.   They couldn’t just pretend he didn’t die.

“Well I know some people- well, I guess I know _of_ some people now,” Stiles corrected himself, “who might be able to fake some documents if I’m here long.  Could say I’m your nephew instead of your son.”  He shrugged, trying to remember Danny’s hacker contact.  He mourned his phone, truly. 

“Why does it not surprise me that my son knows how to create a fake identity?” the sheriff said, shaking his head. 

Chris smirked.  “Our Stiles probably did, too.”

“It’ll probably cost me since I don’t know them anymore,” Stiles shrugged, kinda bummed that he couldn’t pull that favor his contact owed him.  “Or, cost somebody else because I doubt my credit card works here,” he laughed bitterly, wishing he had some cash on him. 

“Do you, though?” his dad asked, bumping mugs.  “Have an idea how long you’ll be here?”

Stiles frowned into his coffee, it was almost gone now.  “Not a clue.”   He knew it was something to consider.  He may be on a deadline and not even know it.  Being here was a serious matter, leaving him feeling heavier for the burden of it all. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Chris assured them.  “We always do.”

No, Stiles thought, recalling all the deaths along the way to figuring things out, the near misses and failed attempts and lucky shots.  They really don’t. 

 


	3. aid

For someone not knowing what he was doing here or how much time he had, time passed quickly.  After their reunion, Stiles moved back into his old bedroom.  He took the Argent’s book and called up Deaton to see if he had any more leads, but so far he had nothing more to go on.  He poured over the one text he did have, hoping to glean some sort of hint as to how he got himself into this situation.  There were a lot of interesting stories, but none that quite helped him.  

Stiles contacted C:Breax, Danny’s hacker friend, who thankfully had been unaffected in the changes and would be willing to make him fake everything: birth certificate, SSN, driver’s license, passport, records in both his school’s databases of his attendance and graduation, the printed degrees themselves.  All for the low low price of a few magical enchantments and a paste - for which Deaton gave Stiles worried looks when Stiles asked his help in obtaining the ingredients.  It wasn’t a bad deal, all and all.  For now he carried his own driver’s license, a replica of the Stiles from this verse.  No one he showed it to would know this world’s Stiles was dead unless he got himself arrested.  

Chris came by to help hammer out his backstory.  Stiles and “his cousin Nik” had gone to college together, and with Stiles gone and Nik’s parents gone, he decided to come live with his uncle since he was interested in law enforcement. 

Stiles wondered how many people at the station wouldn’t take him for his cousin.  Most of the department had shifted since Stiles graduated high school, after how many of them had died.  And since he wasn’t around as often not many of them learned his face past the photo’s in his father’s office.  He supposed the set of his shoulder and the hard lines of his face were enough to differentiate them.  Stiles had seen a lot of pictures of his other self in his old house.  They all seemed happy, without such a weight on his shoulders. 

The pack had kept their distance, still adjusting to the fact there was this new familiar face in town. 

And before he knew it, the weekend had gone by and it was the first of the month.

For now, Stiles just laid back in his bed, staring at his ceiling like the long nights after the nogitusne left his body.  He felt like a lost high schooler all over again.  There was a knock at his door and his dad poked his head in. 

“Hey, kid.  I’m just going down to the office, but uh, you have a visitor.”  Stiles sat up as his dad stepped aside to let Allison in.  She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled shyly.  “I’m just gonna go,” his dad said to the two of them.  “See you later, okay son?”

Stiles said his goodbyes, eyes stuck on Allison.  “Hey,” he said once they were alone.

“Hi.”  Allison rocked forward on her toes and then back onto her heals before settling again.  “So, the full moon is this Friday,” she offered.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, scratching at his shoulder absently. 

Allison shrugged and came to sit next to him.  “I don’t know what you did, but uh, we like to get together, have a barbeque when the weather works.  It’s kinda lame, but we all want you there.”

“Really?” Stiles asked, thinking of Derek and how he ran away both times he saw Stiles. 

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.  “And besides, if you’re supposed to be fixing something, then it has to do with the pack, right?”

“That would be the most logical conclusion,” Stiles agreed, grinning at her.

“Well you certainty can’t learn anything if you don’t spend time with us,” Allison slapped Stiles’s thigh, “come on.”

Stiles smiled at her honest cheer.  “Where are you taking me?” he asked as he followed her through the house and out the front door.

“You’ll see,” she grinned.  Stiles got into the passenger’s seat of Allison’s black sedan.  They drove for a while, Stiles taking note of all the shops.  They were the same.  All of them.  It really was his world, just slightly… off.  Allison pulled into the diner he used to always get his dad dinner from, with the curly fries and perfect burgers.  This is what he had been craving when he woke up in this place.

“Just like home,” he said as they got out of car. 

Allison laughed a little awkwardly.  “Ha, yeah.  Come on.  Erica’s waiting for us.”

Inside the diner Erica was holding a booth for them, a brilliant smile on her face and a little bit of heartbreak behind her eyes.  “Hey, Stiles,” she grinned, standing up to pull him in for a hug.

“Didn’t you hear?  It’s Nik, now,” Stiles said, sliding into the booth across from her. 

“Yeah right,” Erica snorted, flipping her hair over her shoulder.  “Where the hell did that name come from anyway?  Nikodem?  Why not just give yourself something normal.” 

“It’s my middle name,” he confessed. 

“Well, then why didn’t you just go by Nik in high school if that was your middle name?” Allison asked as she scooted in next to him in the booth.

Stiles rolled his eyes.  “Because when you’re in first grade and no one can pronounce your name you kind of adamantly reject your name at all costs and make up your own.  By the time I was older it was just my name, you know?  I wasn’t going to go change that again.”

Erica hummed her disapproval of an uninteresting story when a waitress who couldn’t be older than 15 walked over with three plates, setting a Swiss cheese mushroom burger in front of him.  It was one of his favorites here, the bacon double cheese only for times of deep hangover.  He gave a look to Erica.  “You ordered for me.”  It wasn’t a question, not really.  He shook his head with a smile, picking up his burger and relishing the first bite.  It was delicious.  “I feel weird,” he said through a mouthful pushed to one cheek like a squirrel, “that I don’t know your favorite foods.”

Erica stole one of his fries before picking up her club sandwich.  “Well you’ll just have to stick around to find out, right?”

He looked between the two girls.  Allison was biting her lip, poking at her salad with her fork.  “You guys want me to stay?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to him.  He wasn't from here, he was supposed to go home, he was an intruder with a dead man’s face, they should want him to leave.  Even with the looks of love and wonderment his dad kept giving him, and no doubt he kept giving his dad, this isn’t where he belongs. 

“Yeah, you idiot,” Erica said, tossing a fry at him.  “Even if you’re not,” she paused, swallowing a lump in her throat, “even if you’re not _him_ , you’re still our friend.”

Stiles wondered if his relationship with Erica could count as friends.  “You once hit me over the head with a part of my car engine you ripped out,” he told her, popping the fry she threw at him in his mouth.  He was also unable to stop her from being tortured.  Stop her from running away and being captured.  Stop her from dying. 

Erica blinked, eyes wide, before busting out laughing.  “Oh my god, _why_ , but yes.  Other me is badass.”

Stiles grinned into his burger.  “God, I don’t remember.  Details are fuzzy and not all because you probably gave me a concussion and then left me in a dumpster.”  Erica snickered and even Allison’s shoulders were shaking in laughter.  “It had something to do with not wanting to get in the way of Derek’s plans to fight off a monster you guys never had to deal with.”

Allison bumped her shoulder against his.  “Well that doesn’t sound too horrible.  There was this one time you got on Erica’s bad side when it was both her times of the month.”

Stiles felt himself lock up in retroactive fear. He gaped at Erica.  “I am so sorry for my past, other dimension self.  Dear god.  What must you have done to him?”

Erica only smirked.

“I remember this one time Malia was on her, er, double time and-”

“Who’s Malia?” Allison asked.

 Stiles froze just before taking a bite.  He lowered his burger and looked at them, heart going double time. 

“Stiles?  What’s wrong?” Erica asked, no doubt hearing the increasing rhythm of his pluse.

He didn’t want to believe that this could be a possibility, but he had been afraid to ask, afraid to dig up too many old wounds when he was still a stranger here.  But they didn’t know Malia.  Which meant there was a girl, alone in the woods, trapped as a coyote.  Maybe she had been killed by now.  Hunters of the non-supernatural kind taking her out, or a larger predator, or just nature. 

And Cora, who had never been mentioned.  They faced the alpha pack, but maybe the alpha pack never had her in this realm.  The alphas had been scouting them for months before giving an indicator that they were around, then months more before they really started wreaking havoc, while they were waiting for their captures to go moon crazy.  Maybe while they were scouting and they saw such a different pack than the one Stiles had known, they formed a different strategy.

But Cora had heard about her brother, hadn’t she?  Had heard there was a Hale back in town making a pack… unless that was a rumor about Peter, spread by hunters.  It may have never reached her if Peter had never made a beta.

Derek had his pack here, sure.  But he didn’t have his family.

Stiles recalled how Scott was able to alpha mode Malia back into being a human and frowned.  “I may need Derek’s help with something.”

The girls looked at each other, clearly thinking that wasn’t the best idea. 

“Derek agreed to the full moon,” Allison said, “but he might not be ready to see you just yet.” 

Stiles nodded, biting his lip, his mind still racing with the who and what and how.  “I could maybe contact Satomi if she’s still around.”  If she died here too, there would be a new alpha of that pack.  They might be willing to help a straggler.

“Satomi?”

“Alpha of another pack a town over,” Stiles said, pushing Allison gently so she’d get out of the booth and let him out.  “I think I might know what I have to do.” 

“What?” they both asked. 

“There’s a girl.  In the woods.  Just.”  Stiles stood, pulling the few dollars he had out of his wallet and putting it on the table.  “Sorry I don’t have more.  I’ll pay you back sometime, promise.”  Then he was darting out the diner without a second glance, ignoring the calls from the two girls.

There was a girl in the woods.  The scent of wolves would scare her away.  And even with his recent time spent with Erica, he didn’t really smell like wolves anymore.  He hadn’t for years.

Stiles raced off.  The diner, like most things in Beacon Hills, had a back lot with a wire fence separating it from the woods.  It was easy to make it into the preserve and surprisingly even easier to orient himself in the direction of the crash.  Stiles used to visit the car site with Malia on the anniversary of her adoptive mother and little sister’s deaths.  Even when they weren’t together, he would hold her and remind her that she wasn’t a monster and that it was okay to be scared and sad and that she couldn’t blame herself for something she didn’t have control over, didn’t even know she needed to control.

The car was still there, metal frame near lost under the years of dead foliage piling up, vines and roots taking hold, making it a home, a part of the forest.  With perhaps not enough care, Stiles made his way down into the ditch.  He could hear the sound of the road not far off.  It was just as eerie as when he first came here.  Stiles had to slide onto his stomach, getting his front covered in dirt and damp dead leaves, but he was able to reach inside the car just enough to grab hold of the one item he knew could draw Malia out.

The baby doll looked even worse than he remembered it.  The extra years of weather and insect damage had the thing practically falling apart.  The plush body was torn and the plastic hands and feet where cracked open.  It was missing an eye.  Stiles took the toy and climbed his way out of the ditch before heading in the direction of her den, hoping she hadn’t found a new one since she was seventeen.

Stiles found the mouth to the small cave he knew Malia once called home.  May still call home.  He sat down facing it, placing the doll in front of him, and he waited.

His relationship with Malia had always been rocky.  He always wondered how much of their first kiss had just been rampant hormones and sleep deprivation.  She would lose her temper when she didn’t understand things and was belligerent to her adoptive father for first putting her in Eichen house and second putting her in high school.  She wasn’t crazy nor was she ready for school when she had missed the past seven years of education.  Malia had grabbed onto Stiles as a life line, a tutor, a mentor, a friend, as someone who understood what it was like to feel crazy and lost and alone.  It ate away at them.

Not that they didn’t truly care for each other. 

Stiles always had a special place in his heart for Lydia, but they would never be more than friends and Stiles found himself adjust what love could feel like.  Just because it wasn’t what he felt for Scott didn’t mean that what he felt for Lydia was anything more than friendship.   

Malia was the first person to reciprocate feelings.  They liked each other a lot and they understood each other and in high school where your romantic partner is your world they couldn’t see how destructive they were to each other. 

He couldn’t say he loved Malia now.  He didn’t hate her.  She hated him, hated what their spiraling cycle of breakups and second chances did to them, but he didn’t hate her.  And this Malia never knew him.  And she was a person.  And she needed to be safe and loved and cared for. 

There was an undercurrent crawling up his skin.  Malia was approaching.  The coyote and the wolf felt very similar, but he could tell the difference, and she was the only were-coyote around.   

There was a growl from behind, threatening and aggressive.  Stiles turned his head over his shoulder to look.  She barked a warning, prowling forward.

“Hey, Malia,” Stiles said sadly. 

Her growling didn’t stop but it was clear by the back step of her front paw and the jerk of her head she recognized her name. 

“I’m sorry for taking it,” he said, gesturing to the doll, “but it was the only way I knew to get your attention.  I promise I won’t let anyone find your den, but I needed to talk to you.”

Malia snarled, hackles raised and posture set for attack, but she didn’t advance.  He took that as a good sign.  Stiles took a deep breath, picking his words carefully.  “I know you’ve been… stuck like this for a long time, so long you may not want to come back.  And I know you feel guilty about what happened to your mom and your sister, but it wasn’t your fault.  It was an accident that you had no control over.”  Malia snapped her jaws and began to dart forward.

Stiles cursed and rolled out of the way, jumping to his feet.  “Malia, please!” he begged of her as she rounded to growl at him again.  The doll sat between them.  He looked pointedly to it, then to her, and then, keeping eye contact, took a step backwards.

“I know you want to return that to your memorial.  I won’t stop you,” he said. 

She took a cautious step forward and snatched the doll up.  She took a moment to stare at Stiles before turning tail and running away. 

Stiles sighed and hoped he hadn’t scared her away for good. 

He headed back to the main road and resigned himself to the long walk home.  He really needed to get a new phone.  A quarter mile out a banged up green car slowed beside him.  He recognized it from the Hale house the other day.  The window rolled down and Isaac leaned over the passenger seat a bit with a strange, questioning smile.

“Need a ride?”

Stiles gave an awkward smile in return.  “Yeah, sounds good.”  He got in and asked Isaac to just bring him back to his dad’s. 

“So,” Isaac began, “Erica told me about you running out on lunch?” 

“Just something I need to take care of, I think.”

“Like how Deaton said?” Isaac probed. 

Stiles shrugged.  “Maybe.”  He still needed to track down Cora’s phone number, find out what happened to her.  He could probably contact C:Breax again, or maybe just Danny, if he can’t figure it out on his own.  Or maybe not Danny.  Danny might know Stiles is dead and may not know about werewolves in this line.

“So who’s the girl?” Isaac asked, breaking Stiles’s train of thought. 

“Hmm?”  Stiles pulled his thumb from his mouth.  He hadn’t even realized he’d been biting the nail.

“The girl.  Erica said something about a girl in the woods.”

“Oh,” Stiles said, looking down at his hands.  “Derek’s cousin.”

“What!?  I didn’t know-”

“Derek doesn’t even know about her.  She’s Peter’s daughter and Talia took the memory of her from him and put her up for adoption.” 

The silence in the car was heavy.  “So,” Isaac began again, “there’s just been this girl living in the woods?”

“In the body of a coyote,” Stiles clarified. 

“Ah.”

They remained quiet for the rest of the drive.  They pulled up to the Stilinski household and Isaac put the car in park.  “Hey, so,” Isaac started, hesitating a bit. 

Stiles wondered where this quirk came from, of hedging into every open silence with an almost apologetic intro.  The Isaac that Stiles had known was both broken and snarky, putting sarcastic anger to hide his past and pain.  As Isaac fiddled with his keys, toying with the idea of turning the car off or not, Stiles wondered if this was an after image of the abuse Isaac suffered from his father.  If growing out of his teen years subdued the out lashing into something similar to the afraid child tip-toeing around every subject. 

“I know this must be hard, for you.  I mean, it’s hard for us, knowing you’re here and yet… not.  So it must be hard for you and you must want to go home as quickly as possible, but, I don’t know,” Isaac shrugged, running a hand through his hair.  “It’s good that you’re here.  Not that you have some mission and we need you to fix us, but that, it’s good because we missed, well not _you_ , but.”

“Hey,” Stiles said, placing a hand on Isaac’s arm as if to steady him, “it’s okay.  Don’t worry about making what you say too correct, because with the whole universe jumping it does get confusing.”

Isaac gave him this strained smile, pleased but also upset.  “There.  That, that’s what I’m talking about.  The person that changed my life was the you you were when you were still sixteen.  And sure, time and events may have molded you guys into different people, but at the heart of everything, you’re still you.”

Stiles looked at his hand comforting Isaac and drew it back.  He wanted to deny it.  That the person who helped Isaac was someone riddled with the grief of losing his best friend.  That Stiles back then hadn't been that person. They already couldn’t possibly be the same.  But maybe they were.

“It’s good to have you around, that’s all I’m getting at,” Isaac said, puffing his chest up a little proudly.  “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Right,” Stiles said, opening the car door.  “Thanks.  And thanks for the ride.  I’ll see you Friday.”

“Friday it is,” Isaac grinned.  Stiles got out of the car and shut the door, unable to look back as he walked up his driveway and into the house. 

The next day Stiles went back to Malia’s den.  He could feel her inside, so he was thankful she hadn’t found a new home because he showed up there.

“Hey,” he said to the air, hoping she could hear, hoping she would listen.  “It’s me again.  Sorry about yesterday, we probably got off on the wrong foot.”

Stiles remembered the time Malia punched him at Eichen house and snorted his amusement.

“I know it wasn’t nice of me to take your things, nor is it nice of me to sit out here like I’m trapping you inside, but I’m not trapping you, I just want to talk.”

He listened for any sort of recognition, but there came nothing.

“I know that you’ve been living on your own for a long time.  And truly, Malia, that’s impressive.  You’re here and you’re alive and you did it all on your own.  You’re a survivor.  But I also know that you’re human and you don’t have to live like this.

“I know you miss your mom, and your sister, but you must miss your dad too, right?  He’s still out here.  I looked him up last night.  He’s still alive and living alone in the house you spent your years as a child.  He still mourns you.  I know it’s been a long time, but you have to remember what it was like, being held by your dad.  Being loved unconditionally.  Nights where you couldn’t sleep and he’d make you warm milk and read you a book.  Playing in the park.  How proud of you he was at your T-Ball games.  You miss him, right?  You can see him again.  As a person.  You can learn to control this.”

Stiles waited, but there was nothing.

He came back the next day, sat outside of her den and read to her _The Butter Battle Book_ , the one Malia had told him was her favorite as a kid.  He brought treats with him, peanut butter and the pre marinated steak tips from the grocery store he knew Malia loved.   

She came out, sniffing and wary, but Stiles didn’t stop reading until the end of the book.  Her mouth was full of peanut butter but she still growled when he set the book down and looked at her.

“The full moon is in a few days,” Stiles told her, ignoring her growling.  “You don’t have to be alone.  I know they’re hard.  But there’s a pack.  You can have a pack, Malia, you don’t have to be alone.”

She growled again, tentatively stepping closer just to snatch up a steak tip. 

“Did you know you have a cousin?  He’s,” Stiles frowned.  He never asked, but it was obvious Derek was the alpha here.  No Scott.  No Peter.  No Cora.  He would have stayed the alpha, been the alpha for years.  “His name’s Derek.  I’m sure you know that house, in the middle of the woods, that was burnt down.  You’ve probably visited it when it was nothing more than a place of ash and decay, right?” 

Malia looked at him funny, cocking her head and skittering around to get to another piece of meat.

“It’s been rebuilt, although I’m not sure when.  That’s Derek’s house.  He’s the alpha.  He can help you.  He can help you turn back into a person, help you so you can shift whenever you want.  And then you’ll have a pack, a family, and your dad back, and you don’t have to be alone anymore.  Yeah?”

Malia stayed silent, glaring at him in what was surely a patented Hale look. 

“I’ll come back tomorrow, yeah?  Bring you some more food?”  Stiles stood and took a few steps back.  “Think about it, okay?”  He turned and walked away.

When he came back, Malia was waiting for him outside of her den.  He pulled out the raw steak tips and tossed them to her, sitting down to watch her eat. 

“The full moon’s tomorrow,” he said when she had finished.  “You know where the Hale house is?”

Malia didn’t nod, but the way she turned her head made him think she understood.  No way to be certain. 

“We’re all meeting there.  If you want to show up, I’m sure they’d all be excited to meet you."  Stiles stayed with her a bit, just sitting in the woods, chatting aimlessly in a way he hadn’t for years.  He filled the silence with his observations, talk of the pack, telling her how amazing everyone was.  And they were.  Erica had taken him to get a new phone and told him all about her three year relationship with Boyd.  Boyd, as it turned out, was a teacher at the high school now.  Boyd and Isaac came over for beers and watched baseball with him.  He realized he was smiling at one point, talking about how Allison came over and baked cookies with him the other day and he got batter all in his hair. 

He didn’t have anything to tell Malia about Derek, about _this_ Derek, which was unfortunate as Derek was her cousin and the alpha and the biggest selling point.  Stiles could only tell truths about what he knew, that Derek would do anything to protect his pack and he took care of them the best he could.

Stiles mind wandered a bit, thinking about him.  He hadn’t been around, Erica saying something about being okay for the full moon, but not earlier.  Derek needed more time to adjust, and okay, but he wasn’t sure why.  They were obviously closer in this timeline, seeing how Stiles helped him pick out his betas.  He didn’t ask about it.  He still felt like he was prying into somebody else’s life too much.  Maybe the pack thought the same, realizing that first day that their Stiles and himself didn’t have the same closeness to their alpha. 

After a while, Stiles stood up and brushed himself off.  “Okay, Malia.  I have to go.  But I’ll see you tomorrow, if you want.  It’s up to you.”

He turned to look back once when he walked away.  Malia was sitting outside her den watching him go.

When Stiles got home, having taken his old bike from the garage the last few days, he logged onto the laptop his dad never got rid of after this Stiles’s death.  There was a message waiting for him from C:Breax.  It was going to cost him a bit more in the possibly illegal magical concoctions department, but he had gotten Cora’s number and location.  South America.  Stiles wasn’t going to get access to the number until his payment was in though. 

Stiles called up Deaton and asked if he had the materials in, which Deaton confirmed.  “Are you sure about making this, Stiles?” Deaton asked cautiously when he showed up at the animal clinic at closing time.  “It’s-”

“It’ll get me what I need.  That’s all that matters.”

Deaton crossed his arms with a frown.  “If you insist.”  Deaton gave Stiles free reign of his ingredients, the box of newly ordered ones already sitting on the metal work bench.  “Have you remembered anything more about your assailant?” Deaton asked as Stiles began grinding herbs.

“I dunno,” Stiles shrugged, “he was attractive, or at least to me with beer goggles on he was attractive.  Wouldn’t have gone out the alley with him if he wasn’t.”

Deaton hummed, but let him be, going off to do whatever it is Deaton does.  After all these years the man was still an enigma.  Stiles rubbed at his shoulder, working out a kink, as he searched for the belladonna. 

What he was making was, simply put, dangerous.  Dangerous in its usage and dangerous for its creator to make.  Stiles never asked C:Breax why he wanted it.  He was probably a supernatural creature himself.  For humans, ingestion would lead to death simply from the poisonous ingredients used, but mixed in the correct solutions it could range anything from a night cap to a shot of something likened to heroin to an untraceable killer, dependent on the consumer’s species.  What it did was a bit more complicated, but those were its results.  It could also, as most poisons, be used to heal as well.  C:Breax was most likely an addict, though.  It was an easier conscious to hold, knowing he was giving someone poison they would use to slowly kill themselves rather than to murder others. 

When all the ingredients were put into place Stiles slit his palm and let blood drip into the powder he had crushed by hand, mixing it together to create a thick paste.  He had to use his own blood for the matter and he had to force his spark into the ingredients that held no properties without it.  This was the dangerous part for him.  To put your life force into a poison can backfire and push the deadly effects straight through to the spell caster.  It’s all mixed together here, his blood as a bonding agent, and the spell caster has to push his energy into only the parts that are currently null.  This part must be done after it’s mixed.  It’s very difficult and can easily lead in death if not treated properly upon backfire.

Deaton stood in the doorway, waiting for something to go wrong.

Nothing did.

Deaton’s face when Stiles looked over held all the contempt in the world.  “Where’d you learn that?”

Stiles shrugged.  “Couple of my classmates back at UCLA.  It’s not like I use the stuff.”

But Deaton just shook his head and walked away.  Stiles felt like he had let Deaton down, as if this world’s Stiles was better than this.  But this world’s Stiles didn’t have to figure out how to live on his own, no pack, no family, only his magic and knowledge of supernatural which forever kept him from being able to be normal.  Stiles survived the only way he knew how, absorbing all the information and doing what he will with it.

Stiles went home with his newly created paste in a jar and tried not to think of the choices he could have made differently. 

He woke up the next morning and got his package in the mail with the paste and a few other items requested by C:Breax.  Tension was thrumming in the back of his throat, nervous anticipation for the get together that afternoon.  The full moon was on the rise and he could feel it in his bones.  The thought of meeting Derek, and truly it felt like _meeting_ Derek today, was making him anxious.  Probably because he’s the only one he hadn’t a chance to really speak with of the group left here. 

Stiles idly thought about calling Scott before he remembered he couldn’t do that.  He wondered if Melissa was around.  She had been like a second mother to him.  On a whim of utter boredom and too much energy, he called his dad and asked.

“Yeah,” he laughed lightly on the other end of the receiver, “she’s around.  I’ve – uh, been, well.  I wasn’t sure if I should tell her about you because she’d know you weren’t some cousin in a heartbeat.  But, I, the thing is, we, um-”

“Are you,” he cut his dad off, an amused smile pulling at his lips, “are you _dating_ Melissa McCall?”

The sheriff huffed on the other end of the line.  “Well, I wouldn’t call it _dating_.  We haven’t, it’s not like, I mean, we’re not that young.  And we’ve known each other for a long time.  And-”

“Oh my god, you’re totally dating Melissa McCall!” Stiles cheered with a laugh.  He remembered him and Scott always rooting for them to get together, but Melissa and stupid Ralph got back together sometime around his senior year of high school.  It was okay though.  Agent McCall had really gotten himself in shape by then, but still, it was kind of disappointing for him and Scott.  Not that they weren’t already drifting apart by that point.  His dad tried to dismiss it again as nothing but Stiles cut him off.  “No, dad, it’s okay.  I’m glad you have someone.  But yeah, does she even know about the supernatural?  How would we explain me?”

His dad sighed on the other end, “No, she doesn’t.  And, I don’t know.  If you’re here for long she’s going to find out.”

Stiles felt his heart drop.  “Yeah.”  Stiles had no idea how long he was going to be here.  It had already been over a week.  They said their goodbyes and Stiles looked at the clock on the microwave.  He still had so much time.

When Isaac came over to pick him up he was near going out of his mind.  “What do we do at these things anyway?”

Isaac laughed.  “It’s just an excuse to have a party.  Eventually Erica will bully everyone into going to the lake for a swim and Boyd is the best at the grill and I don’t know.  We have a lot of fun.”

“Fun.”  His mouth twitched in an almost smile.  He couldn’t remember the last time he really had _fun_. 


	4. shift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR SSN4!!!
> 
> I didn't realize how much I just kinda blabbed away at. That being said I don't think you need to have watched ssn4 to follow along as it's all past tense in this story.
> 
> PLEASE DON'T WATCH SNN4 just for the sake of understanding what Stiles says. Treat yourself like one of the AU!pack and be confused by it. Much better use of your time if you already stopped watching the show.

Isaac pulled up to the Hale house.  Allison’s car was already in the driveway.  Erica, it seemed, primarily just stole Derek’s Camaro and Boyd often just took Derek’s SUV, which were also parked out front. Stiles idely wondered how Derek got around anywhere.  Out back everyone was cheery.  Allison with her blinding smile was helping Boyd at the grill.  Erica was by Derek’s side.  She called his name out and bounded over, grabbing Stiles a beer and Isaac some of their special brew out of the cooler on her way.  Erica pecked him on the cheek and linked arms, herding him towards Derek.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly, shifting his feet. 

Derek grunted, staring at Stiles with the type of malicious mistrust he hadn’t seen since they’d first met and Derek was still slamming Stiles into things. 

Stiles wondered about what their relationship was like.  This Stiles lost in a world of grief and guilt, having lost his best friend, meeting Derek who just lost his sister, both out to seek revenge, to find Peter.  He has no doubt he latched on quickly, if what Allison said was true, that the first thing he said to her was don't hurt Derek.  But he still couldn’t imagine Derek being his friend in the same way.  Derek would be one to take the help offered, pretending he had demanded it, and then back away too afraid he would mess things up.  Stiles can’t imagine he ever helped Derek chose his pack. 

Erica slipped away, leaving the two of them alone.  He could feel their eyes on his back, watching him interact with their alpha as slyly as possible.

“I’m sorry if me being here has… upset you,” Stiles said, unsure of what else he could say.  He didn’t want to bring up what they were or weren’t to each other.  Allison still gets tense when he misses a reference because they weren’t the friends she knew them to be. 

“It’s fine,” Derek said curtly, pulling his crossed arms closer to his body and looking away. 

Obviously, it wasn’t fine.  But if Stiles knew one thing about Derek it was that pushing never got him anywhere. “Right.”  Stiles gave a sort of half wave and made to leave when Derek reached out and grabbed at the cuff of his shirt sleeve saying “Wait!”  Stiles looked between where Derek’s hand was and Derek’s face, surprised and slightly reeling with déjà vu.  Could it be called déjà vu when it had gone the other way around all those years ago?  “Yeah?” Stiles asked, keeping his feet planted, staying still.  His body a silent monument to the words _I’m not going anywhere_.

Derek dropped his hand and kept his head down, unable to make eye contact.  “It’s not, I just…” Stiles bit the inside of his cheek to keep from telling Derek to use his words.  He was trying, Stiles could give him time to find them.  Eventually Derek raised his head and met his eyes.  “It's not fine,” Derek admitted, “because you’re here, and when you look at me it’s like you don’t even know who I am.”

Stiles shrugged.  “Then treat me like my alias.  Like I really am just Nikodem Sebastian Rzymski.  That, what I know of you is only the stuff my cousin Stiles told me, but we’ve never actually met.”  The trick hadn’t worked with the rest of the pack, but he had to try and give Derek _something_ to ease him into it.

Derek just closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose and then shook his head.  “I can’t,” he said.  And Stiles knew what he meant.  No matter of pretending could change his scent. 

“Sorry,” Stiles offered, truly wishing he could do something.  He and the Derek back home may not have been friends, but they could still rely on each other, would put their lives on the line for each other.  And Derek was the only one here he had known up until the point of arriving in this world.  They weren’t friends, but they were far from strangers.

Allison came over and placed a gentle hand on his arm.  “Come on, let’s get you some food.”  She dragged him over to the patio furniture where some side dishes had been set along with the plates and utensils.

“So, how was work today?” Stiles asked, piling potato salad onto his plate.  “You with your real person job.”

Allison laughed, sitting across from him.  “It was good.”

Stiles nodded.  Pleasantries weren’t his forte.  “How’d you get into that anyway?”

Allison stilled and Stiles knew it was the wrong thing to say.  She gave him a shy smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her hair.  “You,” she said.  She busied herself with tearing at a napkin as she talked.  It was still difficult for them to talk about the Stiles from this universe to him.  “You came over to my house for the first time and I still hadn’t finished unpacking.  You went through all my shitty art.”

“Hey, it couldn’t have been that bad,” Stiles admonished, hoping to lighten the mood. 

She shrugged, looking up briefly then going back to her napkin.  “Yeah, well, you said something similar,” she laughed.  “You made me realize that I didn’t have to be perfect to like art and like doing art.  Which, you know, with my family perfection was everything so I always gave up so quickly with art.  And I know I’ll never be an artist, but you made my love for it valid,” she shrugged.  “So, I’m saving money to go back to school to get my masters in Art History and I get to work at a museum every day because you pushed me to follow what I cared about.”

“Well good,” Stiles smirked.  “I was always telling Scott he should listen to me more often.  Obviously I have the best ideas.”

Allison stopped tearing her napkin and grinned.  “Yeah, you do.”

“What the hell did I do for work, anyway?”

Manger at Best Buy, apparently, with aspirations to become the Guidance Counselor at BHHS.

Before long they were all eating and talking.  Stiles kept looking back over to Derek who was either avoiding looking at him or giving him harsh glares.  Derek was keeping silent which was unusual, no matter which Derek.  His never had a problem expressing his displeasure and annoyance at Stiles.  This one, he could tell by the rest of the pack, was probably more open than he was being today.  He figured it would settle eventually.

“Oh my god, this burger is amazing,” Stiles said though a mouthful.  “High five, Boyd!”

He reached over the table with a raised hand.  Boyd rolled his eyes but gave him a high five anyways, a hint of a smile tugging at his lips.  It was a good look on Boyd.  Stiles had only seen Boyd smile when he was extorting money out of him. 

Isaac pulled him into a conversation about different supernatural creatures which caught the attention of the rest of the pack as he talked about the evil spirit trapped beneath the nemeton, the other pack of werewolves in the county, were-jaguars and the creepy temple of doom in Mexico.  He talked about Parrish even though the deputy never moved to Beacon Hills.  “There’s a family of wendigo’s actually, in town.  I don’t know if they kill those people or just steal fresh dead.  I should maybe figure that out and tell dad.  Then there’s Meredith,” who he had looked up and yes, she is still alive and well in the Eichen House, “who I really hope I don’t have to deal with because the only person who could ever get through to her was Lydia.  But seeing how Peter’s dead I doubt the dead pool will happen.”

“The _what?_ ” Erica snapped.

“What does Lydia have to do with it,” Allison asked with a frown. 

“Who the hell is Meredith?” Isaac questioned.

“Oh,” Stiles paused, stilling his hands.  He looked over to Derek who had been frowning the whole time.  “Uh, Lydia’s a banshee.  So is Meredith, but Meredith kind of went crazy with it all.”

Silence fell over the table.  “Well that explains the tree drawings,” Allison said softly to herself.  She looked at Stiles.  “When Miss Blake was attacking people Lydia kept drawing these trees and she found one of the sacrifices… but then we figured everything out and the drawings stopped.”

Stiles nodded.  “Yeah, she was drawing the nemeton.”

“And what about a dead pool?” Boyd questioned.

Stiles shrugged kind of ashamed for his own time line.  “When Peter was in a coma he was in bed next to Meredith for a while and as a banshee she kind of had his ranting in her ear for a long time, and he was crazy at that point.  She had created a list of all the supernatural creatures in the area and put them on a hit list, essentially.  Stole all your bearer bonds,” he said, nodding to Derek, “to pay off whoever wanted to kill them.” 

“How many died?” Erica asked. 

Stiles’s eyes went distant, remembering all the people after his friends, about the time he got a concussion when Brunski tried to kill Lydia.  He hadn’t seen many of those deaths, but he had seen a lot of death.  “A lot,” he said.  “And shit, Brunski might still be at Eichen House.” 

He scrambled away from the table, pulling his phone out of his pocket.  He dialed his father, biting at his nail bed until he answered. 

“Stiles?” his dad answered, sounding worried. 

“So, sorry, but if you didn’t know there’s this nurse at the Eichen House, last name Brunski.  He’s totally a serial killer.  Writes down that his patients deaths were suicides, but he records all their deaths on tape, so search his office for those.  They have their names on them.  Do you remember Lydia?  Her grandmother was a victim, but she was also, uh, supernatural and so her tape sounds a little weird, just FYI.”

There was a loud sigh on the other end.  “Hey kid, thanks for calling.”

Stiles laughed.  “Hey dad.  But seriously.  Brunski.  He’s a total asshole.” 

“Any other insight from your other life?” he asked, sounding exhausted.  Stiles thought about mentioning the wendigoes but decided against it.  They probably stole from morgues.  And he didn’t want to out them if they weren’t doing anything bad.

“Not at this moment.  Keep safe, okay?”

His dad sighed.  “Yeah.  You too, kid.  Now stop talking to me.  I know you’re at the barbeque.”

Stiles turned back to the pack who were kind of staring at him with open mouths.  He gave a weak wave before saying goodbye to his dad.  “Sorry about that,” he told them. 

Erica cleared her throat and stood.  “How about we clear the plates and go swimming?”

Isaac groaned although he was clearly enjoying the idea.  “It’s still cold, Erica!”

“Oh shut up,” she slapped the back of his head.  “Stop being such a baby.”

Stiles helped them bring plates into the kitchen, scrapping them clear and letting them rest in the sink.  “We’ll deal with those later,” Erica promised, pulling Stiles away.  “Have you been to the lake?”

Stiles almost brought up the Naiad that tried to move in but thought better of it.  That was just an embarrassing time for him.  “Not for swimming,” he said.  The lake wasn’t far from Derek’s.  Erica was already stripping off her top with a laugh.  “Is she going to swim naked?” he asked. 

“Only sometimes,” Boyd sighed, shaking his head.  “We have a pair of trunks if you want.”

Stiles waved him off.  They were almost at the lake.  “Boxers work just as well,” he said.  Stiles shrugged off his plaid and then pulled his shirt over his head.  There was a sudden stillness to everyone’s movements.  He looked up from where he was wrestling with his belt to see everyone staring.

His body, he realized, as much as it was the same, was riddle with scars they had never seen. 

There were faint marks on his back from the first time he and Malia had sex and she couldn’t quite control her claws.  Even fainter were the spider web white lines on his back shoulder, a leftover of the black lightning from the nogitsune inside of him.  They could have been stretch marks if not for the location.  He had a thick, dark scar on the left of his abdomen: a knife wound.  There was a five point puncture on his bicep where Peter tried to get his claws into him.  His worst scars though were in his mind.  He was glad they couldn’t see those. 

“You don’t have your tattoo,” Boyd explained, breaking the silence and the stares.

“Tattoo?” he asked.  “You guys know how much I hate needles, right?”  He scratched at his shoulder awkwardly.  “Scott got a tattoo and I passed out watching it happen.”

“Yeah, we had to knock you out,” Isaac laughed a little apologetically, pulling off his socks. 

“What did I get?”

They all sort of avoided his eye before Erica walked over and kissed his cheek.  “A triskeleon,” she said before jumping into the water. 

Stiles furrowed his brow, thinking about it.  He looked over to Derek who was hanging by the tree line.  The alpha was pointedly looking away. 

“Right,” Stiles said, kicking off his pants.  He joined Erica in the water, yelping at the cold temperature.  The group laughed at him.  Allison climbed a rock and did a perfect dive.  “Show off,” he yelled, splashing her when she surfaced. 

Things quickly stabled after that, although Derek never joined them despite the begging of the others.

Stiles floated on his back, the water calming all around him.  It had gotten dark and the moonlight shined down on all of them.  They bathed in the glow and he thought it looked like magic. 

Something from the knight’s story came back to him.  While other mortals would age and die after leaving the fairy ring, he had lived.  But the knight had been bathed in magic as a child.  He wondered what that meant.  Stiles had been bathed in blood.  Bathed in moonlight.  Bathed in darkness.  Bathed in death.  The nemeton had swaddled him in its poison, a dying tree taking the heart and mind of a boy.  Jennifer had sacrificed so much to borrow power and restore the nemeton, including her own life in the end. 

He felt like there was a connection somehow.  Something he was missing. He wasn’t sure.

There was a growl under his skin, dryer, hotter than a wolf’s.  He swam to the bank, on alert as the pack picked up the scent of a nearing supernatural creature.  Derek was on guard already, poised to strike.

“Hey, no, it’s okay,” Stiles said, rushing over and placing a hand on Derek’s back.  Derek jolted from the touch and Stiles tried not to feel hurt.  “It’s okay,” he repeated, turning to the thick of trees where the thrumming of someone new was coming from.  He took a few steps forward, ignoring the low growl coming from Derek.  Stiles crouched, extending a hand to the darkness.  “It’s okay.  Come on out.  No one’s going to hurt you.”

By that time the rest of the pack had made its way out of the water, all on edge. 

There was a rustle of branches and soon a paw cleared the darkness.  Malia’s face was slowly revealed in the moonlight, muzzle low to the ground and ears perked in search for any sudden movement.  She slinked forward cautiously, eying the wolves with curiosity and distaste. 

“Hey, Malia,” he said with a small smile as she reached his hand and bumped her nose against his palm.  He brushed at the fur around her ear and under her chin, a quick sign of affection and scent.  “I’m glad you came.”

“Who is this?” Derek demanded.

Stiles stood, turning to face the alpha.  “Derek, I’d like you to meet Malia.  Peter’s daughter.”

There was a collective shift amongst the pack.  Derek’s mouth parted slightly and his eyes softened, staring at the coyote in wonder and disbelief.  He looked back to Stiles demanding an explanation without words.

“She was adopted by the Tate family and when she was a kid she shifted for the first time, losing control in the car with her sister and mother.  They both died whether from the crash or her, I can’t be sure, but the grief and fear kept her from shifting back.  She’s been stuck like this ever since.”

Derek got closer to the ground, his eyes on Malia.

“Malia,” Stiles said, looking over his shoulder at her, “this is your cousin Derek.”

Malia took another step forward, keeping close to Stiles, but her eyes were on Derek.  She lifted her head slightly, less afraid but still cautious. 

“How did…” Derek’s eyes flickered to Stiles briefly.

“Scott sort of alpha roared her back into humanity,” Stiles said, scratching the back of his head. 

Derek flashed his eyes red and Stiles felt his heart in his throat.  He hadn’t seen those eyes that color in a long time.   Malia flashed her eyes back, an electric blue.  “Do you want to be a part of this pack?” he asked Malia.  The coyote huffed and took another tentative step forward.  Derek looked to Stiles again, almost steadying himself, before shifting his features.  “I hope this works then.” 

Derek let out a roar, commanding and powerful.  The sheer volume of it had Stiles taking a step back almost as if it had had a physical force to it.  Then, crouched down beside him, was a girl, a woman.  The sight of Malia’s naked body was familiar but like looking back at a fond goodbye.  It did nothing for him now. 

Malia was panting hard, her shock palpable.  She hadn’t been human in almost two decades. 

Stiles slipped away quickly and grabbed his plaid off the rocks and covered her.  He knew she was freezing without her fur.  “Hey, come on,” he said fondly when she looked up at him.  “Let’s get you inside.  We can do introductions properly over hot chocolate.”

A tentative smile spread across her face.  She looked back to Derek and walked forward shyly before flinging herself at him.  The Malia in his line had been angry, lost and confused and forced out of her home and body.  It was her choice here.  She wrapped her arms around Derek and held tightly, nuzzling against his neck in thank you, in welcome, in family. 

Malia let go of Derek and hugged Stiles’s shirt closer.  She turned to Stiles for direction and he nodded his head for her to follow before leading her to the house.  The rest of the pack snapped out of their stupor and raced to catch up.  Allison threw his clothes at him.  Erica grabbed Malia’s hand and led her into the house with a simple “let’s get you into some clothes, yeah?  I think I have some things that might fit you.”

“She looks like Laura,” Derek said.  Stiles jumped not realizing the alpha was behind him.  His Derek had said something along the same lines.  Once Malia was out of her teens she really resembled Laura. 

“She’s going to need a lot of teaching,” Stiles told him, pulling on his tee shirt.  Allison had gone with Erica to help dress Malia but all the boys were in the living room.  “She needs to learn how to control her shift and how people behave versus the rules of the wild.”  Stiles looked up at the stairs where the girls had disappeared.  “She lived long enough as a human to develop cognitively that she’s not stinted, but she does have very animalistic instincts.  Probably stronger than when I knew her.  And she doesn’t know anything about the world, really.  She was only a kid.”

“I can tutor her,” Boyd offered.  “It’s almost summer break and I’ll have the time.  We can help her get her GED at the very least.”

Stiles gave Boyd a blinding grin.  Malia would prefer that to being thrust into school like she had been.  “She’s going to want to see her dad, her adoptive dad.  But she shouldn’t stay with him.  He’s a mess,” Stiles told them all.  He turned to Derek.  “Sorry for giving you this project.  It’s going to take a lot of work.”

Derek’s look of wonder hadn’t left his face.  “You gave me family back,” he told him simply, his gaze so intense Stiles had to turn away. 

“About that,” Stiles said.  “I may be able to bring one more person back, but I’m still waiting on my contact.”

“What?” Derek whispered, his breath caught.

“Um, your sister, Cora.  She escaped the fire.  She’s down in South America right now.”

There were tears in Derek’s eyes when he looked again.  Derek never cried.  It was odd to see him so vulnerable.  And over something happy, no less.   The one and only time Stiles had seen Derek cry was when Boyd had died. 

“Cora?”

Stiles nodded.  “I’ll get back to you on that, promise.  For now, I’m going to, uh,” he lifted his clothes in lieu of an explanation and headed to the bathroom.    With the door locked he took a deep breath.  That was more emotional than he had expected.  It was rattling for reasons he couldn’t quite place.  Stiles slipped out of his soggy boxers and put his jeans on as is.  Looking at himself in the mirror, Stiles gripped the sides of the sink and breathed. 

He was glad he could help Malia, but he couldn’t see why it was this world that needed fixing.  They were _happy_ here.  They were a family already, Stiles was just able to add a few blood relatives into the mix.  Sure, he could catch a few extra bad guys with insider knowledge and he could help two girls who had thought they had no family in the world, but really, was that all?  He hoped so.  It would mean he could be done with this place.  Although, looking at his reflection, he knew he hoped not.  It would mean he would be here longer, among people who were a home.

Stiles splashed some water on his face before sitting on the toilet to pull on his socks and shoes.  He took another deep breath and then went to join everyone.  Stiles passed Isaac in the kitchen making the hot chocolate he had promised Malia.  By the sounds of it, everyone else was in the living room fussing over Malia.  Stiles leaned against the doorframe and watched them all, smiling and cheerful.  They were careful with her, and she was careful back, but he could see it was a good fit.  A better fit than Malia joining Lydia who was under so much pressure to figure things out, Kira who was too timid to help, Scott who was lost in his own troubles, and Stiles, who was already too broken to really help her.  This Malia would have the support she needed.

He turned to help Isaac with the coco mugs when his eye caught a photo on a shelf in the hall.  Stiles frowned and picked it up.  It was of him and Derek, laughing.  Derek had his arm slung over Stiles’s shoulders and the draping hand had linked fingers with his own.  And suddenly his whole view of this world shifted. 

He looked over his shoulder to find Derek standing next to him, staring down at the photo in his hands.

“Were we?” Stiles asked, unsure of the words he wasn’t saying. 

Derek nodded, taking the photo frame out of his hands.  Stiles watched as Derek’s thumb traced the smile on this Stiles’s face. 

“I was going to ask him to marry me,” he confessed. 

“I’m so sorry,” Stiles said before his brain could even process that that was _him_.  He and Derek.  Together.  No.  This Derek lost someone dear to him and it wasn't Stiles.  It wasn’t him.  It was someone else with the same face.  A part of him wasn’t sure if he was just giving his condolences, but rather actually apologizing.  Because he _wasn’t_ him.  “I’m sorry,” he said again.  All of Derek’s actions made sense.  If Stiles had someone who he – If someone came back but it wasn’t…  “Should I go?” he asked.  Because as much as the pack liked him and he liked the pack, he didn’t have to be around any of them.  He could remain the ghost he was, holed up in his childhood bedroom.  “I don’t have to be here if…”

Derek put the photograph back on the shelf and gave Stiles a sad smile.  “It’s fine,” he said, and the words shot through Stiles like a bullet.  It wasn’t, obviously.  It might never be.

Stiles backed away, shaking his head.  “I think I should go.”  He turned on his heel and was out the back door before taking a second thought of how he was going to get home.  Derek didn’t chase after him, so he kept moving. 

He didn’t try to go home.  The woods had a heavy feeling of omniscience at night, tingling with electricity under the full moon.  Stiles knew these woods well, and he knew the creatures living in it even better.  He wasn’t in danger.  And right now he needed to be alone in a place that was as much his as possible.  Even his old bedroom wasn’t his.  It was a model of the boy who used to live here.

“Shit,” Stiles said, running his hand over his eyes. He let himself wander. The night air was crisp and his clothes were slightly damp from putting them on without drying off after the lake swim. He shivered slightly. Stiles found himself, as if following an invisible thread always leading him back to it, at the nemeton.  

It was dead, he thought.  More dead than the one in his own line, at least.  It felt hollow, still clinging onto the last vestiges of a girl named Paige.  This was the point of convergence in the town, where the ley lines came together, and it was dying.  The nemeton in his world had been healed by Jennifer, awoken by the combined sacrifices of himself, Scott, and Allison.  They were the last needed to complete the fivefold knot.  This nemeton was dying, the ley lines fading, the power in this world turning to dust. 

“Maybe you’re what I need to fix,” he pondered, placing a light touch to the edge of the giant stump.  It was rough and brittle.  The nogitsune, he thought, might have been the cause for its death, seeping life from the very forest to create something close to strife.

Stiles wondered if Derek had his mother’s claws.  Or if Deaton knew of other boxes made from the tree’s wood.  He was going to trap the beast in something powerful so there was no chance it could escape.  This world didn’t need that.   He sat on the stump and let his fingers trail the rings across the uneven surface as far as he could reach and back again. 

He tried to think back, to try and find that connection with his own Derek that could have, under different circumstances, end up with them together.  It didn’t seem possible.  Sure, Stiles had always found Derek attractive, but that hadn’t meant much.  They weren’t close.  They saved each other’s lives and snarked and that’s not a healthy foundation.  As if either of them were to talk about healthy relationships.

But Derek had found Braeden and she was the one who was able to help him.  During the time Derek was human he had been the strongest, most solid footed, Stiles had ever seen him at that point.  Because of her.  And when he gained his powers back again, they became something powerful for each other.  They never married, but Stiles didn't think Braeden was the marrying type. They still lived together, at least when Braeden didn’t disappear on an assignment. 

Derek had never shown interest in Stiles. 

This Derek had wanted to marry him.

Stiles leaned back and looked up at the moon.  No, he thought, this Derek had wanted to marry this Stiles.  No one wanted to marry him.

When Stiles finally made his way back to his dad’s house, he had gone over every moment he’d ever lived with Derek Hale.  He could see it now, the potential.  But they weren’t some destiny, Stiles had potential with a lot of people.  Neither of them acted on it, in his life, and Derek had fallen in love with someone else.  Derek in his world was well adjusted and happy and content and Stiles had nothing to do with that. 

He climbed into his old bed after shucking his cold clothes and shaking into the folds of his comforter. He was thankful his father had the night shift and wasn’t there to see him like this, searching for answers in a past that never happened.

Derek’s words from early that evening kept coming back to him.  “Because you’re here, and when you look at me it’s like you don’t even know who I am.”

The problem was Stiles did know.  Stisles knew all about Derek’s past.  His life growing up, his relationship with his sisters and his mom and Peter, he knew about Paige and about Kate, he knew about the fire and all about what Derek did in the years living with Laura before coming back to Beacon Hills.  He knew how much it hurt him that Peter had killed Laura.  He knew how much Derek had never wanted to be the alpha, how much he never wanted to kill his uncle.  They were predators, Derek had said once, but they didn’t have to be killers.  But Derek found himself a killer.

It was Stiles that none of them knew.  No matter of how many of his ticks and preferences they had memorized, they couldn’t possibly know how utterly destroyed he had become.

There was a version of himself that had someone who wanted to marry him, Stiles thought.  There was a version of himself that might have been whole.  No, not whole.  Stiles didn’t think he’d been whole since he watched his mother die.  But there was a version of himself that had been more than just alive. He had been living.

Stiles fell asleep to the first rays of dawn and the thought that the pack would be better off once he was gone.

 


	5. itch

Stiles dived into research the next day.  His dad found him behind a pile of print outs and a cork board of names.  He needed to keep a log of where everyone he knew was, remembering people from events that resulted in death or destruction.  He needed to make sure they were far away from Beacon Hills.  The assassins, the Mexican hunters, the creatures that never came here: all of them were being cataloged. 

“What’s all this, then?” His dad asked, eyes squinted in that familiar look of _what the hell have I stepped in_.

“Visual diary,” Stiles said, printing off a page on where Lydia was now.  Jackson Whittemore’s face had already fallen from the printer and lay on the floor.  Matt Daehler was up on the board as a twitchy photographer but no criminal history.  Isaac’s dad was in jail.  Stiles apparently had something to do with that.  There were a number of faces with X’s.  Jennifer Blake: dead.  Kali: Dead.  Ennis: Dead.  Deucalion: Dead.  Braeden: Dead.  Morell: Dead.  Scott McCall: Dead.  Stiles Stilinski: Dead.

But Heather was alive.  And so was Caitlyn and her high school girlfriend.  Danny alive and well, his life hadn’t been altered much at all between the two lines, it seemed.  Jackson was a douchebag at law in training.  Lydia was in fact working for NASA. 

Kira was out in New York and played soccer professionally.  Her parents were okay.  Parrish was still seemingly unaware of his supernatural status, working as a deputy a few hours up north. 

Harris was also alive, so that was stupid, but oh well.

The wendigo family, as Stiles found out that afternoon, did in fact steal dead bodies rather than kill people, so he let them slide.  Although he made a note to tell Allison about them incase anything happened. 

“Why are you doing this?” his dad asked.

“So nothing supernaturally bad can happen here without your extensive knowledge of who and what they are,” he said, pinning a sketch of the Oni to the board with a detailed list of how to kill them, how to stun the nogitsune if in a host’s body and how to otherwise kill it. 

He picked up Jackson’s profile and cautionary notes and pinned it in the upper corner. 

“Stiles,” his dad said.

“Mmhmm.”

His dad walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder.  “As nice as this is, you have to remember that you can’t protect us from everything.  That’s my job,” he winked.  “Come on, pause this for a moment and get something to eat.  I’m on my way out for the afternoon and I don’t think you’ve eaten since yesterday.”

Stiles shrugged.  “Probably true.  I’ll get something soon, just let me finish these last few pages.”

His dad sighed.  “Well I can’t forcefully pull you away from the computer, you’re not a teenager on his first day of school anymore.”

Stiles laughed.  “Yep, did that to me too.”

The Sheriff ruffled his hair and told him again to get something to eat before leaving.  It was about an hour later while he was in the bowels of the internet searching for every detail he could find on Satomi’s pack members when a plate was set down beside him with a freshly made turkey sandwich.  He went to grab it before he realized he was supposed to be home alone.  Stiles looked up and startled.

“Hey!” he squeaked, face flushing at the sound. 

Derek stood over him, his eyebrow raised in a condescending manner although there was something joking about the tilt of his lips. 

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked.  “How did you get in?”

Derek rolled his eyes and pulled up a chair.  He nudged the sandwich closer to Stiles and Stiles absently picked it up and took a bite. 

“You father told me to check up on you, said you were in a research craze and that you probably hadn’t eaten despite him directing you to do so.”

Stiles flushed in embarrassment.  His stomach growled as if in rapt anticipation for the food currently in his mouth.  He swallowed hard, the half chewed food going down roughly.  “Uh, but,” Stiles coughed, “why’d he call you?  Not that I’m not happy to see you!” Stiles quickly covered, his growing embarrassment no doubt turning his face a brilliant shade of red.  “Uh, just that, you know.  With us, or not us, I mean.  My dad has to have known, and you’d think he’d have a bit of tact, right?  I just-”

“Stiles!” Derek cut him off, leaning forward just enough to make Stiles jump in his seat.  “It’s okay.  Allison and Isaac have work and Boyd and Erica are helping Malia.  Your dad just called the house, I said I’d take care of it.”

“Does she really need two babysitters?” Stiles asked.  He thought about how Malia ended up in the Eichen House in the first place.  “Never mind, I answered my own question.”  Stiles looked down at the sandwich in his hands.  “You’ve had to deal with me like this a lot, haven’t you?”

Derek shrugged.  “Stiles would spend a lot of time in the study,” Derek said.  Stiles thought of the room with the half burnt books.  “I have a lot of books on old customs and he just found them fascinating.  I’d have to drag him away sometimes,” Derek gave a private laugh, his eyes a little distant.  “During college I’d have to call him during finals week and talk him through making himself food.  Sometimes I’d just order it online to have it delivered.”

Stiles remembered working himself to the bone during college.  He lost a lot of weight and almost passed out a couple of times.  At first it was just because he was alone and didn’t know how to connect with people who he couldn’t talk about the supernatural with.  Then when his dad died it was practically a coping mechanism, ignore reality in favor for the printed word.

“I’m glad he had you for that,” Stiles said, taking another bite.  “How’d you get in?  Do you have a key?”

Derek shook his head and jerked his thumb to his bedroom window.  Derek had climbed through his window and Stiles hadn’t even noticed.  He snorted, nearly choking on his sandwich. 

“Just like old times, huh,” he joked.  The dead pan amusement on Derek’s face had him thinking back on his words.  “Oh shit, did you use to sneak in here and have sexy times?”

Derek just rolled his eyes and stood to look over Stiles’s board.  “I did ring the doorbell first, but you were too busy,” he commented, but the blush on the back of his neck told Stiles that yes, Derek did used to sneak in here and make out with him.  Er, well, other Stiles.   

“When did we get together?” Stiles asked. 

Derek stilled, his hand inches from touching the photo of Stiles.  His hand trailed away to the photo of Jennifer.  “We were really close by the time the alphas came into town.  Good friends, I would say, but there was a tension between us that the betas liked to poke fun at and we liked to ignore.  Stiles was just a kid, still.  I couldn’t…  But then Jennifer,” he tapped the photo, “charmed me, subtle enough to make it seem like I was making my own choices, but,” he shrugged.  “When he found out about our relationship he got extremely upset and called me out on it, that it was a cop out, that I just wouldn’t let myself have something good because I was too afraid of being the monster people thought I was.  It still didn’t quite reach me, but he was so intent and upset and it somehow turned into us kissing.  I remember he just grabbed my shirt and hauled me forward and it was so much more _real_ than what had happened between me and Jennifer.  Snapped me out of it pretty quick.  We still didn’t get together for some time.  I was going to wait until he was 18, wanted to make sure it was something he could want for that long.  Everyone knew we were practically dating anyway, just unofficially.  We didn’t kiss again until his 18 th birthday and we were pretty inseparable ever since.”

Stiles set down what was left of his sandwich.  He was reeling with this new information.  He wondered if this is how the others felt when he dropped bombs on them. 

“What’d my dad do when he found out?” Stiles asked, turning away to look back at his computer.

Derek huffed in amusement.  “Told me if I ever hurt you he had bullets that could actually hurt me.”

“Sounds about right,” Stiles grinned, going back to his list of people he still needed to look up.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Derek said.  Stiles blinked at his screen a few times, unsure he heard that right.  Derek apologized to him.  Stiles turned back around to face Derek who was now sitting at the foot of Stiles’s bed.  “If I made you uncomfortable, or anything.  You didn’t have to leave.  The pack missed you.”

Stiles shrugged.  “I needed time to collect my thoughts.”

“Who are we,” Derek asked, looking gut wrenched by the words falling out of his mouth, “to each other in your world?”

Stiles tried to smile.  “You’re someone I can count on.”

“But we’re not together.”

Stiles shook his head.  “You found someone who could help you, and that someone wasn’t me.  I had my own relationship going on at the time.”  He scratched mindlessly at his shoulder.  “Neither of us looked at each other that way.  You’re in love with someone else and living happily.”

“What about you?” Derek asked.

Stiles’s smile turned bitter.  “I don’t know if I’m capable of that.”

“Falling in love or being happy?”

“Either.”

Stiles turned his chair back around to dive back into the internet, a clear dismissal.  His eyes weren’t reading a word though as he waited for the other man to leave.  Derek let out a heavy sigh, his bed springs squeaking as the alpha stood. 

“Get to bed at a reasonable hour,” he chided, “or at the very least before your dad comes home.”

Stiles listened for the slide of his window and the footfalls against the rooftop before it disappeared, then waited for the thrum of wolf to leave his skin.  He wondered how he hadn’t noticed it when Derek came over in the first place.  The turkey sandwich by his elbow looked like it was mocking him.  “Shut up,” he told it before realizing he was talking to a sandwich.  “I hate my life,” he groused.

It was fifteen minutes later that he realized he should have asked Derek about his mother’s claws.

Stiles frowned and added another face to his bulletin board.  It wasn’t long before he lost himself into his research again.  He was blinking blindly at his computer screen when his door opened and his dad just crossed his arms in exasperation.  “Okay kid, time for bed.”  His dad pried him from the glowing screen, shutting the laptop and dragging him over to the bed.  Stiles climbed into it without complaint.

“Find anything good?” his dad asked.

“Fairy rings,” Stiles mumbled into his pillow.  He was asleep before another moment.    

In the morning Stiles (or rather his dad) made sure to make himself a big breakfast before holing himself in his room again.  He had found something last night but he wasn’t entirely sure what it was.  His pile of notes was going to be a lot to sift through.  Towards the end of the night he was researching ley lines and fairy rings.  A contact from college (who didn’t know him, which felt weird) had agreed to email him pages from a book they had covered.

Stiles reached over and picked up a BLT and took a bite before realizing he never made himself a BLT.  He looked up and yelped.  Derek was standing just behind him.

“Jesus, dude.  How long have you been standing there?” Stiles said, flailing. 

Derek ignored him and pulled up a chair.  “What are you researching?”

Stiles looked at the pages in his hand.  “Um, nemetons.”

“The giant tree?”

Stiles shook his head.  “No, uh.  The one here is a giant tree, yes, but a nemeton is a crossing of ley lines,” he explained.  “A cluster, rather than a cross road.  It makes the surrounding area a hot bed for supernatural activity.”  He looked up from his notes and frowned.  “What are you doing here?”

Derek rubbed a hand through his close trimmed beard.  “The pack has been nagging me about not giving you a chance.  Because, as much as you’re like him, you’re not him, and I can’t forgive you for that.  But you’re part of our lives right now so I shouldn’t just shut you out.”

Stiles gaped.  “That was, uhhh, that was very well spoken.”   Derek laughed.  It was a good look on him.  Stiles hadn’t seen Derek laugh too often, especially not this Derek who had only really glared at him.  “So this is you trying to be my friend?”

Derek shrugged.  “Erica says it’s like talking to someone who went on a wild vacation and just came back into town after a few years.”

Stiles scoffed.  “Yeah, okay.” 

Derek picked up one of Stiles’s bull clipped packages and leafed through it.  “I think I have books on this in the den.  Stiles had been cataloging them.”  Stiles perked up, dragging his eyes away from an article about a hotbed in Oregon. 

“Is that an offer?” Stiles asked. When he was first in the den he was still overwhelmed by the life of his dead friends. 

“Yeah, I guess so.  Easier to make sure you take proper breaks where I don’t have to break into your house,” Derek joked. 

“Oh, har har.  You’re such a douche.”   Stiles stood and stretched before grabbing the sandwich and tearing into it.  “But if you keep making me food I’ll forgive that.” 

Derek rolled his eyes.  “Chew before you speak.  It’s not a hard concept.”

Stiles headed for the door, grabbing his laptop on the way.  “Why do I get the feeling you’ve told me that before?”

“So many times,” he said shaking his head.

Stiles bit back a grin before remembering what he and Derek were to each other in this line.  It felt like bile caught in his throat.  He glanced back at Derek who was following him down the stairs.  It had to be hard for him.  He couldn’t figure out how Derek was handling it, seeing him, if they were that close.

“Don’t do that,” Derek said.  Stiles stumbled over the last step and looked back again, confused.  “You feel guilty.  You don’t have anything to feel guilty for.” 

The moment stopped him in his tracks.  Stiles had plenty to be guilty about.  He had taken lives.  He hadn’t been there to save some.  This Stiles didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, but Stiles did.  He was hurting Derek just by being here.  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” Stiles offered, standing awkwardly in his own living room.  “You don’t have to force yourself to be around me and try to get along with me just because the pack does.”

There was a moment of stillness between them, but Derek just nodded solemnly.  “I know.”  He walked past Stiles and opened the front door.  “Come on.”  Stiles stood there, staring at the open doorway, unsure.  But Derek just waited and after a moment, Stiles headed outside. 

After the short drive in Derek’s SUV, Stiles found himself in the personal library of Derek Hale.  “Thanks,” Stiles said, walking over to one of the crammed shelves, “for letting me come here.”

Derek just walked over to the desk and pulled open the middle drawer.  He shook his head at the mess and dug up a leather bound journal at the bottom.  “Stiles kept his notes in here.  I’m sure there was an electric version, but I don’t know where and it’s probably encrypted.  This is easier.”  Derek gave him a sort of chin nod and left the room. 

Stiles picked up the notebook.  For the most part it was a catalogue, all the titles and authors of the books in the room.  Then it went into more detailed information about what the books contained, and then starting from the back were personal notes this Stiles had compiled about whatever he had been interested in at the time.   

It wasn’t long before Stiles had pulled all the books about ley lines and nemetons and fairy rings off the shelves.  There were only a handful, but they were pretty thick.  There was a knock at the door that then opened before Stiles had the mind to respond. 

“Stiles!”

The voice was so familiar and yet so much more friendly than the last time he heard it shout his name.  He turned to see Malia’s smiling face just as she bounded and tackled him into a hug.  Erica stood in the doorway rolling her eyes. 

“She’s been asking for you since you disappeared Friday night.”

“Technically it was Saturday morning,” Stiles corrected, pushing Malia off him gently.  “Hey, Malia.  How are you?”

“Cold,” she said.  “Erica’s been teaching me how to people.”

Stiles couldn’t help but smile.  He raised an eyebrow at Erica who just looked away faux innocently.  “I hope Boyd teaches you some grammar,” he told Malia.  She rolled her eyes in a patented Hale look.  “Have you been getting along with Derek?” he wondered.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Erica’s face drop a little.  “Yeah,” Malia said.  “He’s nice.  He gets quiet sometimes.  Like when he came home yesterday smelling like you.”  She said it so matter of fact, it startled him for a moment.  “But he gets it, you know.  Like, we talked about what it was like, me being on the run for so long, and he told me about his sister and just, it makes it easier.  Being here.  A person.”

“Come on,” Erica said, peeling Malia away from Stiles.  “Let the man do his research.”   

“I’m hungry,” Malia said, letting herself be dragged away.  “Is it time for food?  Derek won’t let me hunt,” she threw over her shoulder like it was blasphemous. 

“That’s because we’re civilized and eat things cooked.  Dinner’s in fifteen, Stiles.”  Erica shut the door and Stiles smiled down at his books.  He decided to bench the research for the night and help out.  Erica pointed out the dishes and Stiles helped set the table.  Derek was absent from dinner and Stiles tried to not feel disappointed. 

Erica drove him home afterwards, promising to pick him up in the morning.  “I can just take the books with me,” Stiles complained. 

“Yeah but then I wouldn’t get the excuse to see your pretty face,” she grinned.

When Stiles got back there was a package waiting for him on the dining room table.  The Sheriff must have been home already.  He ripped the manila paper open and dumped out the contents.  Nikodem Sebastian Rzymski.  His middle name and mother’s maiden.  And maybe Seb Stan influenced his new middle name, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone that.  He spread out the documents, all perfect.  The Birth Certificate even looked worn and printed from the 90s.  There was a slip of notebook paper.  Cora’s number.  It was too late to call tonight. 

Stiles picked up his new driver’s license.  Nikodem.  The photo was new, one he took of his own face.  It made it real.  Stiles Stilinski was the boy in the grave and the man living in the Sheriff’s house was Stiles’s cousin. 

He had to go.  He couldn’t breathe right in this house.  Stiles took his ID and ran out the front door ignoring his dad’s calls. 

Stiles found himself at the cemetery.  It was a bit of a trek from his house but not too far.  He needed to grieve.  He needed to grieve himself.  Stiles walked up the path from the gate, his feet carrying him in a fog.  The moon was still mostly full and the pavement was easy to see.  He stilled when he looked up, seeing a figure sitting in front of his grave.  He could feel it, slightly, the way a wolf was resting nearby. 

“Derek?” he asked.

The man turned his head slowly then turned back to the grave before him.  “Hey.”

Stiles walked forward and took a seat next to him.  “How long have you been here?”

Derek shrugged.  “A few hours.” 

They sat in silence for a long time, just letting the chill of night wash over his skin, the only sound the crickets.  Stiles turned the card in his hand, hitting it against the ground to make it slide one direction then the next.  “I got my stuff in,” he said faintly.  Stiles held out the ID card for Derek to take.  “I’m a new man.”  Derek took the card and ran a thumb over the image before handing it back.  “I got Cora’s number.”

Derek faced him, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his eyes.  “Yeah?”

“I figured we could call her tomorrow?  I can’t say if she’ll want to talk or come back or anything.  She was here for only a short while before returning to her new pack in my line, but if she doesn’t even know you exist…”  Stiles shrugged and hunched forward further. 

“Just knowing she’s alive-” Derek choked on his own words, a swell of emotion shining behind his eyes.  Derek cleared his throat.  “Sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Stiles said.  Derek kept his gaze firmly on the gravestone in front of them.  He could hear the unspoken words.  Cora was alive, and that was a miracle.  But his Stiles was dead, and the Stiles here was just a shadow.  “How did I die?” Stiles asked, the words shaking him to his core.  He had stopped asking about it quickly since that first day. It rattled the others and brought up memories they didn’t want to discuss.  Watching their reactions when he told Erica and Allison how they died (Boyd and his father hadn’t wanted to know), Stiles knew he maybe didn’t want to hear anything. 

Derek’s breathing stuttered like he was holding back a sob.  “It was just a stupid car accident,” he said, voice wet with the tears he was holding back.  “He was driving to pick me up because Erica and Boyd had both taken my cars.  I was working at the bar and it was late and it was raining and it was so – ” Derek broke off, wiping at his eyes.  “After everything, it was just a stupid car crash.” Derek’s shoulders where shaking .  “It was just-” Derek held his hands in front of him, picturing something Stiles couldn’t imagine. 

Of all the things Stiles experienced, all the deaths he was witness to, none had been so simple as an accident. 

“I…” Stiles tried.  He reached over and placed a hand on the grieving man’s shoulder.  Derek flinched but then melted into the touch.  Derek curled into Stiles’s side, crying into his shoulder, taking deep breaths in.  “Derek?”

“Just,” he cried, “just let me, please.”

Stiles nodded, running his hand down Derek’s back.  “It’s okay,” he told him, letting Derek take in his scent.  “It’s okay.”  Stiles held Derek, letting the man hold onto him. 

It felt like a lifetime later, the way all deep cries leave you carved out and empty as if time stopped existing, that Derek calmed down.  Their weight had shifted and Stiles was on his back, holding Derek to his side.  He still hadn’t opened his eyes. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles whispered.  “I’m sorry I’m not him.”

Derek’s fist clenched the fabric of Stiles’s shirt.  “Me too,” he whispered.  Derek pulled himself up and away from Stiles, wiping at his face.  “Do you think,” he asked, his voice raw, “can I try calling you Nik?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, looking down at his ID.  “Yeah.  We should probably make everyone call me that.  In case anyone overhears.”  He could be Nik, Stiles thought, for Derek. 

Derek stood, brushing grass off his pants.  “I should get going.”

Stiles scratched at his neck.  “Derek…”

“Why do you keep doing that?” he asked suddenly, his face becoming analytic, focusing on something other than his heartbreak.

“Doing what?” Stiles asked. 

“Scratching your neck like that?” Derek squinted his eyes.  “Stiles never did that, but you do it like it’s a nervous tick or something, all the time.”

Stiles frowned and scratched at his shoulder again, pulling his hand away when he realized what he was doing.  He puzzled at his hand before scrambling to pull his shirt collar back.  “That damn thing _did_ bite me,” he spat, rushing to his feet.  There wasn’t a mark but he was sure. 

“What thing?” Derek asked. 

“That whatever,” Stiles said, waving his hand around and keeping his eyes on his shoulder, “that I was hooking up with when it attacked me and I blasted it and ended up here.”  Derek made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.  Stiles glanced over but Derek had turned away.  He turned back, trying to get  better view of his shoulder but the area was kind of hard to see.  “Ugh, this is stupid.  Derek can you, like, alpha eyes my shoulder?  I need to know if the thing left a mark I just can’t see.”

Derek let out a long suffering sigh.  When he turned to Stiles it was easy to see his eyes were still puffy and his face still sallow from crying.  Stiles shifted his weight, uncomfortable in making Derek upset.  But without comment Derek shifted his eyes, a bold red.  Stiles gulped.  There had always been something about Derek with red eyes that Stiles found… it didn’t matter. 

The alpha reached over and helped pull the shirt over.  Stiles shivered at the touch of Derek’s fingers. 

“Yeah,” Derek said, clearing his throat again.  “I can see it.  There’s this,” he moved his finger over his skin, “circle of pin pricks almost.” 

Stiles pulled away, eyes wide.  His heart was hammering in his chest.  He had read something on one of his print outs from the other night.  “Fairy ring,” he whispered.   “Oh, shit, I know which book I have to read.”

Stiles started running towards the gated entrance.  “Stiles!” Derek shouted.  Stiles stumbled over his own feet but Derek was there to steady him.  “Stiles, it’s nearly midnight.  Get some sleep.”

“No, I have to-”

“Stiles!” Derek shouted again, grabbing his arms.  “Your dad told me you only got four hours of sleep last night.  Let me drive you home.” 

Stiles sighed.  He was tired.  “Yeah.  Okay.” 

Derek led Stiles to his car.  “You don’t have to try so hard,” Derek said after a moment.  Stiles had rested his forehead against the window and watched the passing trees.  “I mean it, Stiles.  Nik.  Deaton said you have to fix something, but you don’t have to work yourself to the bone doing it.”

Stiles scratched at his shoulder again.  “I have nothing better to do.”

“What would you be doing if you were back in your own world, Nik,” the name was awkward in his mouth.  “Tell me that much.”

Stiles tried to count the stars.  “I would have signed away my dad’s house and moved back to LA.  Be making magic poison for addicts.  Trying not to think about all I fucked up in my life.”

“Then why don’t you try to spend some of your time here for yourself?” Derek offered.

Stiles thought about it.  Thought about what he said, his pathetic excuse for a life.  “Maybe.”  He couldn’t think how he could, though, do anything for himself, when he was Nik.

“He wouldn’t have wanted you to waste this chance,” Derek said, pulling into his driveway.  The silhouette of his dad could be seen at the kitchen table through the front window.

“My dad?” he said, thinking of his long gone father in his own line.

“No.  The Stiles I fell in love with.”

His heart stuttered.  He looked over to Derek who was staring out the front window.  “Yeah.  Maybe.”  Stiles got out of the car and didn’t stop thinking about the way Derek held him and cried until he was drifting off in his own bed, alone. 

When Erica picked him up the next day, he gave her a once over and bit his lip.  Malia was in the back seat, looking out the window like some alert dog, her eyes wide and attentive. “Allison’s off work today, right?”  Erica nodded.  “Do you wanna do something?  Something not… here?”

She snorted.  “Like what?”

Stiles shrugged.  “Something… something fun.”


	6. haze

The lights were on when Stiles got home which meant his dad got back before him. “Hey, Dad!” he called out, kicking off his shoes in the front hall.

“Hey kiddo!” the sheriff called back from the kitchen.

Stiles followed his voice and leaned against the doorframe, watching his dad flip off a bottle cap. He held his hand out for the opener as he reached into the fridge and grabbed his own beer. He pried off the metal cap and looked up, feeling his dad’s gaze on him. “What?” he asked trying to discern the look he was getting.

His dad narrowed his eyes a bit, leaning back against the counter and taking a sip of his beer. “What did you do today?”

Stiles raised an eyebrow in question. “Went out with the girls,” he said, putting the bottle opener away. “Why?”

His dad shook his head with a smirk. “You’re smiling.” The comment gave Stiles pause. Stiles reached up and touched the corner of his mouth but it didn’t feel any different. Had he not smiled before? He was sure he had. Except maybe only briefly. Only in moments. Never just… smiling. His dad just chuckled and walked past Stiles, giving the boy’s shoulder a firm clap of his hand. “It’s in your eyes. Glad to see you happy, kid.”

He heard the TV click on in the living room, the soft noise of some news commentator filling the background.   He was smiling. “Huh.”

Stiles shook his head to clear it and took a long drag from his beer and headed upstairs. As he reached his room his phone buzzed in his pocket. He swung himself into his computer chair, plunking his beer down and pulling his phone out. He swiped it open when he saw Derek’s name.

_I called Cora._

That’s all it said. He wondered why he needed to tell him. _How’d it go?_ he texted back before booting up his laptop. The buzz rattled against his desk before the start screen finished loading. _She wants to come and visit._ Stiles smiled, noticing the way his lips tugged after his dad’s comment. _That’s great Derek!_

Once his computer was up he opened the internet and then his fingers hovered over the keys. He didn’t know what he was doing on here. Stiles looked over to his bulletin board. Everything was there. Every person he ever met in Beacon Hills who had died in his own time, every person that had died here. All the supernatural creatures and hunters and information on how to win against the impossible was printed and pinned up there. The only thing he still needed to figure out was how to get home.

His phone buzzed.

Derek: _Thank you, you know, for getting me that number._

Stiles: _How’d u get it anyway? I forgot to give it to u last night._

Derek: _Your dad._

Stiles rolled his eyes. He looked up at his laptop, the cursor blinking in the empty search bar.

Stiles: _How come u guys talk so much?_

He reached over and pulled up Netflix, playing the first inane comedy that came up under suggestions. Derek texted back, explaining how he and the sheriff talk fairly frequently. Stiles replied that Derek in his line used to have a working relationship with his dad, helping him solve supernatural cases. Over the next five episodes of _The IT Crowd_ Stiles and Derek texted back and forth about their day, how Cora’s doing, how Derek was dealing with it all.

Stiles thought maybe Derek could talk to him easier not having to see him, to smell him. Even when he turned his laptop off and climbed into bed, Stiles found himself texting Derek late into the night.

The next morning Stiles biked his way over to the Hale house. He had promised Erica to give her a day off babysitting duty. She had offered to pick him up but he felt he should pull his own a bit more in the Stiles transportation department. They had brought Malia with them and she handled being in public fairly well but it was still like dealing with an overgrown child with terrible impulse control. They had spent some time pulling her away from attacking “perceived threats” which were things like waitresses at lunch who touched Erica’s shoulder or later the boy who tried to flirt with Allison, or worse the boy who tried to flirt with her. It was quite amusing but very tiring.

Stiles reached the Hale house, a bead of sweat rolling down his hairline. Malia burst out of the front door with a cheer.

“Oh thank god,” Erica called from the porch with an evil grin. She had her hair tied back in a loose pony-tail and her clothes were almost practical. It reminded him of the scared girl who couldn’t climb the wall in gym class, but no longer afraid. Seeing every facet of her confidence made him proud. Sure, she liked the bold makeup and fashionable clothes, but she didn’t need them like a mask the way newly turned Erica had. “I need to head off to Home Depot. Malia broke our ceiling fan.”

Malia gave Stiles an embarrassed grin. “Oops.”

He walked Malia back to the porch where Erica was already grabbing her jacket. “Then I think I’m going to bother Boyd during his off period.” She gave Stiles a peck on the cheek before heading off towards the Camaro. “Oh!” she called. “I think we’re all going to Derek’s later. Boyd has so many papers to grade his head is going to explode if he doesn’t take a night off.”

“Derek’s?” Stiles asked, pointing to the house.

Her face was of shock. Obviously something had slipped between the cracks of which Stiles knew what about this world. “No, Derek’s pub. It’s where he invested his money.”

“Oh.”

Erica gave an awkward wave, saying goodbye, but Stiles called out to her again. “Is it safe for me to be going there?”

“Safe?” Erica asked, her face scrunching in confused anger. She seemed offended by the question. He could see her hand clench around her car keys. Stiles hoped she didn’t bend the metal. Then he realized she wasn’t offended. There was fear behind her eyes, distant in a memory.

He had died on the way to that place.  

“Will anybody there recognize me? Any regulars or staff?” He asked, clarifying. If this Stiles and this Derek were dating he would be going to Derek’s place of employment often.

Her face softened, sad. “Oh.” She cleared her throat and shook her head. “No. No, at the time Allison, Isaac, and I were the only people working there. And there weren’t any regulars yet, I don’t think.”

They said their stilted goodbyes and he watched her force the tension out of her shoulders and climb into the car.

Still thinking over the idea that Derek had bought a pub, Stiles headed inside with Malia following him. He supposed it made sense. He hadn’t bothered to research the pack currently still alive and kicking but of course Derek wouldn’t have bought that stupid apartment building. He kept the house, worked on it before the state took it over. He looked around the lived in home of what, in his world, was a patch of forest owned by the government.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he suggested, needing something else to focus on. They had tried to go see something yesterday but the surround sound was a bit much for her ears yet. “Promise to keep the volume down.”

She pouted at him and flopped on the couch. “Stiles, there are so many movies I haven’t seen. So many.”

He laughed and forced her feet up to give him a place to sit. “Yeah, well, there are plenty of movies I still haven’t seen yet. We’ll catch you up, promise.”

“Can we watch Disney?”

Stiles placed a hand on her ankle. He remembered when they would watch movies as dates, Malia always curled up against his side, asking for romantic comedies so she could study behavior outside of fighting, and then action movies to maybe pick up a few techniques. There were always references she didn’t get. “Sure.”

“Stiles?” she asked as he pulled up Netflix.

“Yeah?”

“How old am I again?”

He gave her a pat. “Twenty-four.”

He selected Mulan because reasons.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

Malia stayed silent for a while as the movie started. “How am I supposed to be an adult?” she asked. “What am I supposed to do? I can barely even read.”

Stiles paused the movie and looked her right in the eye. She looked so fearful. Of all the years she spent defending her own life with tooth and claw, here she was afraid of society. But he knew even now she was a fighter, even with words and history she didn’t understand, she would learn and she would try and she would prove to them all how smart and capable she really was.

“There are people around the world your age or older who have spent their whole lives human and still can’t read. Lack of education is not lack of intelligence. You’re still valuable and you still have skills,” he told her frankly. She gave a shy smile, looking away. “Besides,” he continued, “Boyd will help you learn and a lot of people don’t have college degrees and most people don’t remember what they learned in high school anyway. You’ll be fine. It might take a while, but you’ll do amazing when you’re ready.”

Malia wiggled further into the couch. “Just press play,” she mumbled, but he could hear the smile in her voice. He watched her fondly and the characters on screen sang about bringing honor to their families.

It was around the time Mulan disarmed the bad guy on the roof top with just her fan that Isaac came in. He worked freelance for web development, which was actually very cool, Stiles thought, but it meant no one knew when he was busy or not. “Hey,” he said, leaning over the couch and watching the screen a bit before poking Malia’s side. “You up for it?”

“For what?” Stiles asked.

Isaac looked over with a confident grin. “To see her dad.”

“Can we finish the movie first?” Malia asked, her eyes glued to the screen.

“Yes,” Isaac said, walking around the couch and lifting her head. “We can finish the movie first.” He sat on the couch and let her head fall into his lap. She looked comfortable sprawled across the couch and on the two boys.

As the credit’s rolled and the Christina Aguilera’s cover of _Reflection_ played, Stiles and Isaac made them a late lunch and they ate before heading out.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Isaac asked leaning against the open door of his green Civic.

Stiles shrugged, looking away. Malia’s dad wasn’t someone he got along with in his time and he really didn’t care about meeting him all over again. “Nah, I’m good.” As Isaac slipped into the driver’s seat, Stiles looked back at the empty house. “Hey, Isaac?” The blonde stuck his curls out the window. “Where’s Derek’s pub?”

Isaac frowned a bit realizing Derek must not have had the bar in Stiles’s life. “Down on Water’s street where the old Borders used to be.”

Stiles watched Isaac drive off with Malia. He thought about going back inside, reading that book about nemetons. His finger twitched and he bit his lip, holding himself back. Stiles turned from the porch and grabbed his bike. Borders it is.

The pub wasn’t that far from the main road. Stiles remembered the Borders which had closed down when Stiles was in high school and supernatural creatures were still mythical. It had been left abandoned for years. Well, in Stiles’s line turned into a tanning salon. Derek must have bought it before then. He wondered how long it’s been up and running.

The Borders had been totally renovated. When it turned into a tanning salon the store front had been painted bright orange with a cheesy cartoon sun smiling with sunglasses. Derek must have gutted the entire thing and redesigned the whole front. The windows gave a chic open feel to the place, practically covering the whole wall. It reminded him of the loft his Derek had lived in.

There were a few cars parked outside, the lunch rush probably dying down. At least, he hoped Derek had a lunch rush. Stiles strapped his bike to a post out front and walked in. Derek was standing behind the bar, wiping it down. He looked up when Stiles walked in, surprise clear across his face.

Stiles paused by the entrance. He wasn’t sure why he had come here. They were planning on coming here tonight anyway, but he wanted to come earlier. He wanted to come alone.

“Sir?”

Stiles looked up to see a young hostess giving him an odd look.

“Sorry,” he said, “I’m just going to sit at the bar.”

She nodded and let him head over to Derek. He could feel her eyes trailing him. Derek gave a nod to the girl behind him. He wondered how many people hit on Derek here that the hostess checked to make sure the strangers heading to the bar were okay.

“Hey,” Stiles said, sliding onto a bar stool.

“Hey, St- Nik.”

They gave each other awkward smiles, unsure.

“Can I get you anything?” Derek asked, clearing his throat.

Stiles looked over the selection. Tap looked common with a few local brews. The top shelf had some decent whiskeys. It was a little early to be hitting the hard stuff but it looked good. “I’ll have some of the Blue Label, fancy man. Neat.”

Derek gave him a look and picked up a tumbler from below the counter before reaching for the bottle of Johnnie Walker. “Stiles always went for the Hopfather.”

Stiles snickered. “Good name. I actually don’t know if I’ve ever tried it.” Derek placed the whiskey in front of him. “I always drank the cheap stuff in college. Damn shitty beers. Splurged on hard liquor but it was still the cheap stuff. Fireball and Devil’s Cut whiskey and Seagram’s gin. I got so sick on gin once I can’t drink it anymore.”

“When did you switch over to the good stuff?” Derek asked, leaning on his arms over the bar.

Stiles picked up the glass, swirled it a bit and sniffed before taking a large sip. It was a nice, smooth burn. “When my dad died and I drank through his liquor cabinet.”   He took another sip, unable to look at Derek. Stiles had dove into more than just magic when he lost his father. It had been a bad time for him. He never became a drunk, or at least he didn’t want to believe he had, but Stiles did drink in a more methodical manner than he used to.

“Well maybe you can try the Hopfather later,” Derek offered the silence between them.

“Yeah,” Stiles smirked into his drink. “I’m sure I’d like it.”

Before they could say anything more, a waitress walked over with a drink order. Derek gave the bar counter a tap and headed over to fix other people's drinks. Stiles finished his whiskey and tapped his glass for a refill. Derek quirked an eyebrow but obliged.

“You going to pay for these?” he asked, a joke in his voice.

Stiles smirked into his whiskey. “Put it on Erica’s tab. I’m sure she has one, right?”

Derek laughed. “Yeah. You’ll have to pay her back one day.” Stiles could tell by the look Derek was giving the glass he wasn’t sure if Stiles should be drinking right now. “Why are you here, anyway?” Derek asked instead.

Stiles shrugged, letting the tumbler rest just below his nose. He took a deep breath, just inhaling the scent. “I didn’t even know you had this place. Derek needed an apartment so he bought an entire building.” He took another large sip, his eyes fixed on his past. He didn’t want to see the look Derek was giving him.

“What happened to the house?” Derek asked.

“State took it over. It got demolished. You didn’t seem too upset about it until you went all Seventeen Again.”

“What?”

Stiles looked up trying to smirk but he knew it came out more of a grimace. “Other you went through some weird shit, man.” Over another few drinks Stiles told Derek all about the time he turned into a kid, then turned into a human, and then turned into a wolf.

“I can do that,” Derek told him. “The full shift.” He tapped the bar top next to Stiles’s near empty tumbler. “If you keep drinking like that you’re going to finish the bottle.”

Stiles waved him off. “Switch me to Jack.”

He knew that wasn’t what Derek was going for. He also knew Derek would keep serving him.

“So what was this apartment like?” Derek prompted when Stiles was silent for too long.

His mind went straight to Boyd. His blood mixing with the water, dripping from Derek’s hands. “Full of death,” he spat bitterly, downing his drink.

Derek asked a few more questions, opening conversation that Stiles just bit out curt replies to, his mind stuck on images haunting him from a life that never happened here. He saw Erica, broken in Derek’s arms. Boyd, crumpled on the ground, losing his quiet voice to the roaring silence. Allison, limp in Scott’s arms, Lydia’s scream still echoing in his ears. Aiden, a glassy-eyed doll next to his brother’s grief stricken form. The mechanic, killed before his eyes while he was paralyzed on the ground. Peter on fire. Kate’s open throat. Kali’s body full of glass just left in Derek’s loft. His father kidnapped, his bent badge. Heather’s lifeless body on a metal slab with a sheet covering her only days after she kissed him. Tara’s body strewn over the BHHS welcome sign. Coach, with an arrow through his chest. Twisting a knife through Scott’s stomach. Looking back, swearing that Derek would bleed out, shot and human, thinking it would be the last time he would see Derek alive. His dad, mauled by another stray mountain lion.

He tapped his empty glass.

Stiles found there was a way to talk about trauma. It was easy to discuss the events that happened to him. They were just facts. But remembering was different. Remembering was details, adrenaline spikes and hurried breaths. Remembering was pain, searing in the pit of his hollowed chest as he raced his mind to put a cork at the bottle neck of the memories, knowing the parts that still could keep him up at night had already bubbled over.

He wasn’t drunk enough for this.

“I’m not giving you more,” Derek said.

“Why the hell not?” Stiles scoffed.

Derek crossed his arms, unimpressed. “For one, you’re not actually a paying customer. Two, you’ve clearly had enough.”

“I know my limits, Derek. You don’t need to coddle me.”

“Why are you like this?” Derek asked in that tone friends give when they can’t understand why they’re being attacked and are a little offended by it.

Stiles wanted to laugh, but only a wet sour sound came out. “You know, I had fun yesterday. I enjoyed myself. The entire time I’ve been here.” Stiles shook his head, trying to clear it. “The entire time I’ve been here I’ve been mostly fine.” Fine. The word was like a poison. “I’ve baked cookies and watched sports. I went to a freaking _barbeque_ on the full moon! Like what kind of horse shit is that? I get to have my dad back and have friends like they actually know or care about me. And for all that,” he said, looking Derek square in the eye. “For all that, for me to _enjoy_ myself, all that needed to happen was my best friend to die when I was sixteen.”

Stiles suppressed the urge to throw the glass in his hand, resisting the call of that satisfyingly sickening crash.

“I should go,” he said, pushing off the bar stool. He took a moment to steady himself and marched out the front. He heard Derek calling after him.

Nik, he said. Hey, Nik.

Stiles wondered which of his aliases was the fake one.

He ignored Derek, even as the man stood over Stiles as he drunkenly tried to undo his bike lock. The bigger man’s shadow loomed over him, but Stiles still refused to look his way. He needed to get out of here. He needed to breathe. He needed to be drunk and alone, the state of being he’s most used to.

Stiles turned to the sound of Erica’s voice, chattering away next to Boyd as they headed for the pub from further down the parking lot.

“Stiles?” her voice called out, noticing his distressed state and fumbling hands.

“It’s okay,” Derek told them. “I’ve got this.”

“You don’t have to take care of me,” Stiles spat out.

He heard Derek sigh and Stiles finally got his bike lock to click open.

“Derek?” Erica prodded, unsure of the situation. Stiles could only guess Derek's response because he was already hitching his leg over the bike seat and pedaling down the road.

“You know,” Derek said, and Stiles squawked at the sight. Derek was running just alongside his bike in a pair of jeans and nice shoes and he didn’t even seem bothered. “I can keep pace with you until you tire out.”

Stiles laughed, putting a foot to the ground and breaking. As the double entendre caught up to Derek, Stiles watched his face flush. “Derek,” he asked. “Just leave me alone. It was a mistake, coming to the bar. I need to get away from people. And I definitely can’t be around your stupid pack right now.” Stiles wobbled, his balance shot with the alcohol pumping in his veins. He was surprised he made it as far as he did, even if it was just a block and a half.

Derek eyed his white knuckled grip on the handle bars and then gave Stiles that same unimpressed look that had Stiles turning away in almost shame. He was acting like a child and he knew it.

“Come on,” Derek said, steading the bike. “You want to get away, let’s get away. But you’re drunk and self-destructive and I’m not leaving you alone like this.”

Stiles tried to jerk the bike out of Derek’s hands but he was unable to budge it. He looked down the road and took stock of how tilted it seemed and Stiles finally slumped in defeat. “Fine.”

Derek walked him back to the pub, relocked his bike, and dragged Stiles around back. “You’re sober enough to hold on, right?”

“What?” Stiles asked. They turned the corner and Stiles spotted what was undoubtedly Derek’s primary mode of transportation. “Whoa, shiny.”

Derek huffed in amusement. He walked over to the motorbike and swung his legs over. He pulled a helmet out of a side compartment and tossed it over to Stiles. “Hop on.”

“So _this_ is how you get around when things two and three steal your cars.”

“Yep. Come on.”

“Bossy,” Stiles muttered, shoving the helmet over his head. It wasn’t until he was straddling the bike did he realize he had to hold onto Derek. He wondered how many times this Stiles had rode with this Derek. If it was a thing they did, or if Derek got it after Stiles died. He stayed silent on the matter. “Where to?”

“You’re the one who said they needed to get out of here.”

Stiles leaned forward, resting his helmeted head against Derek’s back. “Does this thing go off road?” he asked after a moment.

“It’s the best dual-sport on the market,” Derek said, as if that meant anything to Stiles. He took it as a yes.

“Just start driving west.”

Gripping onto Derek’s waist, he directed Derek down the road towards the preserve, then onto a dirt trail, then off road completely. The ride was refreshing. The wind whipped against his skin as if it could slice him open and leave all his sorrows scattered in the air behind him. The heat of Derek’s body was grounding, reminding him that this world was real. This wasn’t just some wicked nightmare, some genie’s trick or misplaced wish.

They came to a stop in a clearing, Derek slowing without needed direction. It was clear this had been Stiles’s destination. The giant tree stump before them felt ominous in the dimming light. Stiles climbed off the bike as Derek cut the engine and sat down on the nemeton, scooting back until his entire body was on the wooden circle.

“I don’t know if you know this,” Stiles said, his gaze on the clearing of sky, “but you’ve been here before. Before I ever met you. Before your family died.” He listened for Derek to react, some hitch of breath or crunch of leaves, but it was silent. Only the soft chirp of crickets beginning to sing for the night. “Your mom took the memory of this place away from you. Of Paige dying in your arms in the root cellar underneath me.”

He didn’t know why he was saying these things. Maybe he wanted Derek to hurt the way he did. Or maybe because Derek was the only person here who knew what it was like to lose everyone, so he needed to remind him of his first loss.

Stiles thought he shouldn’t be here. Not with Derek. Not at all.

“The first time I saw Stiles drunk,” Derek said smoothly, either unaffected by Stiles’s barbs or faking it really well, “he was sixteen and had just lost his best friend. And he knew, by that point, about werewolves and the alpha we were searching for, but he hated the world and didn’t care about the danger and got drunk in the woods.”

“I got drunk in the woods at sixteen,” Stiles said, rubbing a hand over his eyes vigorously. “And I knew about the wolves and the alpha. I was trying to cheer my buddy up because of heartbreak. Turns out he couldn’t get drunk anymore because of lycanthropy.” They had figured out how to mix things right a few years later but that was a different story. Stiles thought he might be as lonely now as he was then.

“This place isn’t perfect, you know,” Derek said, walking over and taking a seat next to Stiles.

Stiles barked a harsh laugh. “Right. It just has more people alive than dead.”

Derek was silent for a few minutes, the sound of the forest swelling softly around them. “When the Alpha Pack came, they took him. Saw Stiles as the glue to our pack, so they took him to get to me. Said they’d leave him unharmed if I just… killed one of my betas. We enlisted the Argent’s for their help, but they were busy fighting countermeasures from Gerard’s loyalists at first. In the process of trying to get him back, your dad launched a full scale rescue mission. He’s a good detective, figured out where Stiles was being kept, and seventeen deputies died trying to save him. Stiles felt so guilty. And worse, thankful. Because none of the death’s had been his dad.

“Then I was, I don’t know, seduced by Jennifer. It was hard for me to think she was evil when she was willing to help us beat the alphas. But then Stiles kissed me and I could think clear again. Stiles studied with Deaton and Chris to figure out how to defeat Jennifer before she made anymore sacrifices. He was the one who killed her. It haunted him for a long time.

“Isaac actually killed one of the alphas after Allison had shot it full of arrows. The shift was too much for him and he ended up killing another one and then almost killing Boyd before I was able to stop him. We found a way to help him give up his powers, having him heal Erica who wouldn’t have survived the battle otherwise.

“Then that killer escaped, Barrow. He killed some teens a town over. It technically wasn’t supernaturally related so we couldn’t justify getting involved. Stiles didn’t handle that well.”

Derek’s voice tapered off.

“Why are you telling me this?” Stiles croaked out, his voice raspy with barely concealed tears.

“Because you needed to hear it.”

A gust of wind brushed his skin, whistling through the leaves like the forest was trying to coo him. Shh, shh, it’s okay, the wind said. The leaves rustled like the comfort of a rattle.

“There’s a demon living in the roots of this tree,” he told Derek. “It was the only thing powerful enough to contain the spirit. And the demon killed it in turn.”

“You’re very poetic when you’re drunk,” Derek said.

“I try.”

“Why’d you tell me about the demon?”

Stiles turned his head to look at Derek. He was looming over him, but it seemed kind. Protective. Stiles didn’t realize he felt safe until that moment. He didn’t know the last time he felt _safe_ , which was always different than knowing he could handle himself.

“I need the box you keep your mother’s claws in.”

That caught Derek’s attention. Stiles watched the sharp way his breath hitched his chest. “Why?”

Stiles looked away, back at the sky and the growing pricks of stars in the distance. “It’s made from the wood of this tree. It’s strong enough to hold the nogitsune and have it _never_ escape.”

“Did it escape in your time?” he asked.

“It took over my mind and body and killed people using my hands and almost took me down with it.”

Derek rested his hand against Stiles’s shoulder and he was surprised when, even in his drunken stupor, he didn’t flinch. “I can help with that,” Derek told him. “Anything else?”

Stiles traced the lines of the tree ring, contemplating telling Derek about his possible way home. He still had to check some things, read up on something else, learn the last step, but he had put the puzzle together. He knew how to get home.

The stars in the clearing shined on Derek’s face like a halo around his head. Stiles was probably drunker than he thought.

“No.”

Derek laid back, staring up at the stars with him. It wasn’t until it was completely dark that he sat up, hedging his way off the nemeton. “Come on,” he said, offering a hand to help Stiles up. “Let’s get back. You need to eat something and drink some water. Then I’ll take you home.”

Stiles groaned. “Fine.” He let Derek help him to his feet and lead him to the motorbike. Derek shoved the helmet over Stiles’s head with a tap and an amused smirk and Stiles’s clear annoyance. Derek revved the engine, making sure Stiles’s hands were tight around his waist. Stiles clutched the fabric of Derek’s shirt pooling around his stomach and tried not to think about the other boy who used to have the right to touch Derek in less innocent ways.

Derek drove them back to his. It wasn’t too far, they only left the woods for a quick stretch of road before diving right back onto a dirt path. When he pulled up to the Hale house, all the cars were there. Allison’s Sedan, Isaac’s green Civic, the Camaro and SUV. Stiles hesitated on the bike, not sure if he wanted to face them.

“They’re just worried about you,” Derek said as he flipped the kick stand.

“They don’t even know me,” Stiles replied.

“You’ve never worried about someone you just met?” Derek challenged. Stiles had to look away from that. “You’re more than a stranger. You know that.”

Stiles sighed in defeat and followed Derek into the house. The pack surrounded him instantly, making sure he was okay, forcing smiles and relaxation into their poses, unsure what the trouble was at all. They couldn’t just see that Stiles wasn’t meant for this place.

Derek first got Stiles a glass of water, then told everyone to take a step back. He headed back to the kitchen calling behind him, “Hey, Nik, what do you want to eat?”

And the pack froze.

“ _Nik_?” Allison said fiercely.

Stiles had avoided this conversation. “Allison, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine!” Allison rounded the kitchen corner and Stiles had to follow her. “What the _hell_ are you calling him Nik for,” she shouted, “that’s not his name!”

Derek leaned with his hands against the island counter, his nostrils flaring in frustration and discomfort.

“Allison,” Stiles tried again.

“It’s the name on his driver’s license,” Derek cut in.

“Yeah but we know better,” Allison insisted.

“Nik is more his legal name than Stiles is, technically,” Derek countered.

Allison looked livid. “So what! What? Are you just going to _forget_ that this is-”

“I _forget_ NOTHING!” Derek yelled, his chest heaving.

Allison looked ready to start throwing knives. Stiles stepped between them, facing her. “ _Allison_. Back the _fuck_ up.”

She blinked, eyes wide with surprise. She opened her mouth, gaping like a fish. Stiles shook his head.

“ _I’m_ the one who told him he could call me that, if you don’t remember. I gave that option to all of you,” he said, looking at her and then the betas. “And don’t you dare try and tell him he doesn’t remember. Seeing me has to be torture enough, but he’s still the only one who hasn’t said _you_ when telling me about the Stiles you lost.”

The words were out of him like spiting fire. There was still that tingle of alcohol on his tongue, blinking heavy in the back of his mind, but he didn’t let it deter him. He downed the glass of water and slammed the cup on the counter.

“I’m leaving. Someone take me to my dad’s.”

He stormed past all of them, keeping his head down and waiting for someone to follow him. He wasn’t surprised when it was Derek at his heels.

In Derek’s Camaro on the way back to his dad’s, Stiles couldn’t seem to sit still.

“You don’t have to be so angry at yourself, you know,” Derek said into the static between them. “You don’t have to feel guilty about being happy.”

Stiles looked away and didn’t say anything. When Derek parked outside his dad’s house Stiles just sat there, staring at the small two story with too many rooms.

“I don’t know what it’s like anymore, to not feel guilty.”

He reached to unbuckle his seatbelt but stilled when Derek’s hand settled on his arm. He looked up, caught in Derek’s earnest expression. “It takes a while,” he said, “but you can get there.” He took his hand away and after a heartbeat Stiles resumed exiting the car. “Text me,” Derek told him before he shut the door. “I’m serious. Text me a picture so I know you ate something.”

Stiles laughed, an honest smile, if a bit broken, gracing his features. “Yeah, I can do that.” He went inside and twenty minutes later sent Derek a picture of him shoving leftover lasagna into his mouth.

His phone buzzed a minute later. _Ok Garfield. Now go to sleep._

Two hours and several texts later, Stiles finally drifted off in a haze, an almost smile on his lips. 


	7. ease

Stiles went to Scott’s grave. He cursed himself for not having gone sooner. How could he have been here for two weeks and never visited his grave? He stared at the well-kept head stone for what felt like hours but was probably closer to twenty minutes. Scott McCall. Beloved Son. Hay más tiempo que vida.

He called Derek.

“What’s wrong with me?” Stiles asked before Derek could even speak.

“Are you okay?” Derek’s voice asked immediately, alert and concerned. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” Stiles said. He was tired and his heart felt like someone was pulling it apart, but he was fine. He could always be fine.

Derek heaved a heavy sigh, his breath crackling through the line. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with you?” Derek asked patiently.

Stiles stared at the grave in front of him, the midday sun hitting the smooth stone and shining in a way that reminded him of Scott. “You said, last night, that I didn’t have to be guilty. But here I am, feeling nothing but how much I hate myself for everything I did wrong in life.”

“Where are you?” Derek asked again, softer.

“Scott’s grave.”

“That’s a good place to start,” he said. “Do you want me to come meet you?”

Stiles thought about it, starting a bit when Derek called his name. His new name.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” Stiles hung up and waited. He wasn’t sure why he had called Derek at all. Sure, it was easier to talk to the people he knew up until he came here versus the grown up versions of dead teenagers, but Derek was different. Derek had had something with this Stiles. It wasn’t fair to ask him of anything.

But Stiles wasn’t sure if he believed in fairness. Not after the life he lived.

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Derek at first until the other man was sitting down beside him. It felt like a gross parody of the time Stiles had joined him at his own grave.

“Hey,” Derek said, bumping shoulders gently.

“Hey,” Stiles replied, pulling at the blades of grass between his crossed legs.

“Tell me about Scott,” Derek prompted after a few minutes of silence.

Stiles took a deep breath, wondering what to say. “He was a true alpha. He gained his powers forcing his way through a barrier of mountain ash when fighting the darach. It took him a while, but he became a really good alpha. He has a sturdy pack. Malia, this kid Liam he bit, a handful of transfers from Satomi’s pack when she died, a couple other new bites over the course of time. I don’t know if you… if Derek ever considered himself a part of Scott’s pack but you- he stayed in the area. Things have died down a bit there. Still creatures popping up every few months, but nothing as drastic and deadly as our time in high school.”

“Sounds like he made a good home for himself,” Derek said.

Stiles wondered how Scott would have handled being here. Would he be happy to have Allison back? Or would meeting an Allison who never knew him be too much? Would it be a chance to start over with them all or would his being an alpha get in the way of the current dynamic? Would he feel the need to go home to his own pack?

Scott had a home. He had a family that had been put back together and a pack that stood by his side and he had a home.

Stiles had to remember that. Scott may be dead here, but he’s alive and thriving somewhere else.

“You’re a good friend,” Stiles said under his breath. “Derek and I never really got along. Even when we were saving each other’s lives, we always fought.”

“Stiles and I fought a lot, too,” Derek admitted. “Wormed his way under my skin, yelling at me because I was reckless. Realized he didn’t want me to throw my life away eventually, and by that time I was already invested in making sure he stayed safe.” Stiles looked up at Derek, trying to parse through his words. “You and Derek may not have gotten along, but you care about each other. You just didn’t get the chance to build something else before he fell for someone else. But I’m sure he cares.”

Stiles smirked, “Easy for you to say, you never met him.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “No, but I remember who I was when we first met. And even covered in grief you, and I’m going to call him you because I have no doubt you would have been the same, were an annoying little shit.” Stiles barked out a laugh. “And I still cared, when we were fighting my uncle, that you got out all right.”

Stiles remembered the way Derek pushed him out of the way in the hospital, telling him to get out, get safe. He’d almost forgotten, it was so long ago.

Derek stood after a while, helping Stiles to his feet. “Come on, let’s go get lunch.” Derek’s motorbike was in the graveyard parking lot. He asked to go for a ride first, clear his head. Stiles thought, on the back of Derek’s bike, holding tight as they took corners and the wind nipped at his exposed flesh, that he could get used to this.

The next day Stiles met up with Derek at the nemeton. It was chilly, the clouds in the sky grey and verging on rain.

“A little ominous,” Derek joked, stepping off his bike and opening the saddlebag.

Stiles bit down on a smile at the thought of Derek making a joke. Even the one in his world didn’t joke. He’d snark and banter and use sarcasm, but never really joked.

Derek turned around with the cylinder box in his hands, smooth wood with a triskele relief on the cover. He handed it over to Stiles without word. It was empty inside. “What did you do with her claws?” Stiles asked with an edge of caution.

“They’re in the vault in a less magical container, but they’re safe,” Derek said. “So, how are we going to do this?”

Stiles blinked. “Oh, um. You don’t really need to do anything. I just needed this,” he said, raising the box.

“Then I could have given it to you at yours, or you could have come over,” Derek said, an amused tilt of his head and raise of eyebrows Stiles hadn’t seen on him before. “Why’d you have me meet you here?”

Stiles shrugged, looking away. “I just-” Stiles took a deep breath. “The memories of this still hurt. And I guess…”  

“Yes?” Derek prodded.

He looked up briefly before hedging around Derek towards the cellar doors a few feet from the tree stump. “I didn’t want to be alone,” Stiles admitted softly.  He frowned at himself. He always felt safe with Derek - either Derek, it seemed. “Come on.” He yanked open the cellar doors and looked down. “Make sure I don’t break my neck on these stairs.”

The place was covered in cobwebs and the wood stairs looked rotted through. He tested the edge carefully, knowing the sides were always sturdier than the center. The railing seemed fragile but he still used the beam to steady himself. “You should have let me go down there first,” Derek said from the top. It was dark and musty once he reached the bottom, little light coming through the cracks in the roots. Stiles took his phone out and turned the flashlight on.

“Why?” Stiles asked, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. He was already kicking around too much dust. He turned to the cellar entrance to see Derek jump down the entire set of stairs, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. Stiles rolled his eyes. “Show off.”

“I could have better caught you if you fell if I was at the bottom,” Derek chided. “Hard to make sure you don’t break your neck from up there.”

“You do realize I was just being factitious, right?” Stiles asked absently, searching the walls and roots of the dingy hovel. Derek didn’t answer.

“What are we looking for?” he asked after a few moments had passed.

“A jar,” Stiles said, leaning forward to get a closer look at something. He lost his balance for a moment and stumbled forward, knocking into something and stubbing his toe. “Shit!” he cursed.

“You okay?” Derek huffed.

Stiles turned the flashlight on him, red eyes glowing in the dark. “You think that was funny,” he said, incredulous. “Are you _laughing_ at me hurting myself?” The light caught Derek’s smug grin as he turned his head away. “You do! You thought that was funny.”

Derek shrugged. “It’s good to know that no matter how much shit you went through you still turned out a klutz.”

Stiles stilled, taken aback. “Yeah?” he asked.

Derek shrugged. “It reminds that, in a way, Allison was right. You’re not _him_ , so it’s hard for me to call you that, but you are Stiles.”

It felt like his heart bottomed out. “You don’t have to call me Stiles,” he assured Derek. “You don’t even have to try. I like that you don’t confuse me with him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

He wanted to say more, say something, but he didn’t know what. He simply stared at Derek, trying to read the face he stopped trying to learn ages ago. His eye had just traveled back to Derek’s face when a glint of something bounced back at him from the way his flashlight wavered. “Huh,” he said, walking forward, eyes set behind Derek. Derek turned to follow Stiles’s gaze. As he got closer and passed Derek, the flashlight zeroed in on the shine of glass, dulled from layers of dirt. Half sticking out of a twist of roots was a glass jar, lid screwed tight.

He could feel it as his hand touched the jar. He could feel the darkness. The fly inside buzzed up, beating wildly against the glass where his hand touched the other side, greeting what it recognized as familiar.  Something same, something dark.

Stiles still had it, the darkness around his heart. Or, it was less of a darkness and more of an emptiness. He had been stripped when he made his sacrifice. And this damned little creature had done its best to hollow him out until he was nothing but a void.

“There’s no air holes,” Derek said. “How is that thing still alive?”

“You can’t kill a negative,” Stiles said, pulling his hand away. “Can you get the jar out without breaking it?”

“I can try.” Derek was exceptionally careful as he pried the jar away, digging out where he could and breaking roots where he had to. Eventually the jar came free. “This is it?” Derek asked, turning it over and peering at the fly inside. “This is the evil spirit?”

“If it gets strong enough it can corporalize in a human body,” he said. “As it is, it can probably still possess one. It’s weak right now, though. Which is good for us, because this next part is going to be tricky.”

Stiles headed outside where the light was still dull but better than the dark root cellar. He sat down on the grass beside the nemeton and undid the top of Derek’s box before focusing his attention on the fly. He had expected this to be tricky, to wait until he was in an enclosed space, but it turned out he had an unforeseen advantage. He placed his hand at the bottom of the jar, holding it up and the fly buzzed, again and again hitting itself against the glass, trying to reach him. He picked up the wooden box in his other hand, placing it at a 90 degree angle to the lid.

“Derek, can you, on the count of three, as swiftly as possible, unscrew this lid?” He waited for Derek’s affirmation before counting. “One,” he breathed. He could do this. “Two.” This thing had lost its hold on him seven years ago. “Three!”

Derek twisted the cap off in one fluid movement and Stiles put the box over the lid so both their openings connected then tipped it so the jar was on top. “Derek, hold onto the jar.” He did so without comment, their hands brushing as Stiles took his away. The fly inside seemed confused. He took his finger and placed it on the side of the glass. The fly followed as he dragged it down. His other hand grasped the bottom of the wood. When it seemed to catch on that that was where Stiles was, it flew down. His heart hammered in his chest as he picked up the wooden lid.

“Are you ready?” Derek asked.

Stiles swallowed dryly. “Yeah."

Stiles put the lid next to the jar. This time Derek counted down. One, two, the whole world could shatter in the space of a breath, three. Derek pulled the jar away, jerking back to give Stiles room as he slammed the lid down, closing the demon inside.

He almost wanted to cry. It was relief. He never got a chance to do this, to know it was defeated. He fainted when the nogitsune had been bit and had crumbled. He wasn’t there when they trapped the last of it. Stiles wasn’t sure if he ever got over that feeling of what if.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Derek said, kneeling beside him. Derek's arms came around him and Stiles melted into the comfort of somebody who understood what it meant to fight your demons years after they’ve won and left you feeling lost while everyone stood around telling you it was over. “We’ll put this in the vault the way I found it years ago, buried in a chest of mountain ash. No one will ever get to it. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” Stiles said, thinking of generations down the line doing something to disturb the creature’s rest the way he, Scott, and Allison had.

“As long as I’m alive, then,” Derek said. “For the rest of my life.”

Stiles thought of all times he thought Derek had died. First by the hands of the alpha, claws to his gut just outside the school. Then by a fall while fighting Ennis and the alpha pack. Then shot by Kate, human and not healing. And yet Derek never died.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, nodding his head and getting to his feet. “I’ll take that.”

Derek took the wooden box and carefully locked it in his saddlebag. “Did you walk here?” he asked. Stiles nodded. His bike was still at the bar. Or maybe one of the pack brought it to Derek’s. “Come on then,” he said, tossing his helmet over. “Let’s pack this away and then, what, curly fries and the MCU flick of your choice?”

Stiles grinned into his shoulder. “Both _Guardians_ and we’re stopping off and buying chocolate covered pretzels somewhere.”

“I think I can squeeze that in.” Derek turned over the engine of his bike and looked behind him pointedly. Stiles shoved the helmet over his head and climbed on.

“Did you do this a lot with him?” Stiles asked later, still finding flecks of mountain ash under his fingernails. “Go on rides, I mean.” They had just made it back to Derek’s after picking up their order of curly fries.

Derek looked back at his bike and shook his head. “No. No, getting my motorcycle license was kind of a self-therapy for me after he…  It was relaxing and daring and made it easier to clear my head.”

Stiles nodded in understanding before letting out a gut tearing laugh.

“What?” Derek scowled, although there was a grin on his lips.

“Dude, you went all Bella Swan on me,” Stiles was almost wheezing at that point. “Oh God. That’s,” he disintegrated into laugher.

Derek’s brow creased in that familiar confused expression. “Did you read the books or watch the movies?”

“Books,” Stiles said, wiping away tears he had laughed so hard. “They were like crack. I tried watching the first movie when it came out but _man_ is it painful to sit through. I was in middle school at the time, though, so you can’t hate me for bad taste.”

Derek chuffed him on the back of his head.

“Nah, man,” Stiles grinned, “it’s cute.”

Derek rolled his eyes and ushered him inside. It was starting to rain and their fries were getting cold. Halfway through the first movie Malia and Isaac came home and joined them. By the time Derek put the second movie in, the rest of the pack was there. He assumed Isaac texted them. Everyone was huddle up around the two couches, two large bowls of popcorn being passed around. Allison ruffled his hair and he looked up. She gave him a look he knew meant she was sorry about the day before and he settled more easily into the couch. Allison took a seat next to Isaac and Stiles pushed himself a little closer to Derek.

For the first time since he was a teenager, Stiles felt like pack.

It was a few days later that his dad woke him up with a knock on his door. “Hey, kid.”

“Hey, hey. What- what’s up?” Stiles yawned. “Did something happen?”

The sheriff shook his head. “No, but it’s almost noon so I thought I’d wake you before I went in for work.”

Stiles shrugged, slipping out of bed to search for a fresh pair of jeans. His dad stayed in the doorway, looking his bedroom over.

“I noticed,” he began, “that you stopped using up all my ink and paper.” He went over to his desk and picked up a few stray pages. “You didn’t even finish tacking everything.”

Stiles looked away, busying himself in a quest for a shirt. He had finished his research into the people of Beacon Hills, at least.

“Did you figure out what you needed to fix?”

Stiles froze with his arms halfway through the sleeves of his tee shirt, his head still stuck in the fabric. He pulled the shirt over completely and straightened out. “Uh, yeah maybe.”

“What is it?” his dad asked, sitting at his desk chair.

Stiles scratched his chin, the left over scruff beginning to build into an almost beard. He should shave. They never did grow in well.

His eyes wandered to his corkboard. There was a page from Lydia’s notebook the other him had obviously stolen back in junior year of high school. The upside down tree. He wondered if other him figured out what Lydia was, or that she wasn’t all she seemed. He must have suspected, to have taken her notebook full of trees.

“The magic,” he told his dad. “The magic in this town is dying.”

“And you have to fix that to go home?” his dad questioned.

Stiles nodded, “I think so, yeah.”

“Is that why you haven’t done anything about it?”

Stiles looked up, shocked. His dad gave him a knowing look. “It’s okay to like being here. And it’s okay to want to go back. Just make sure you know the choice you’re making.” Stiles swallowed and nodded. His dad stood and headed out, giving him a pat on the back as he passed. “See you for dinner, kay?”

“Kay.”

His dad was right. He was just… delaying making a choice. He wondered if that said more about what he wanted than the choice itself.

Stiles sighed and headed out to Derek’s, sending a quick text to ask if he was at the bar.

Derek: _yeah, why?_

Stiles: _heading to ur house_

Derek: _what for?_

Stiles: _books_

The house was empty when he got there, but he knew where the spare key was. It was eerie being there alone in the stillness. The place was so full of life in every corner, yet he could still see the phantom burnt shell he had visited as a teen. He headed down the hall towards the den, taking his time to look over the pictures in the hall. Seeing himself always gave him pause, but he was getting used to it. This Stiles lived a different enough life he really could be a cousin. He looked different, too. Less haunted behind the eyes.

The den was exactly how he left it almost a week ago.  A short stack of books he had pulled sat on the desk. He flipped through the first two before finding the one he needed and settled down in one of the comfy chairs. He took a break sometime later, rubbing at his eyes that weren’t retaining the words on the page. Stiles sighed and leaned back in his chair, his feet hitting the bottom drawer of the desk.

He remembered it had been locked the first time he came in here. Stiles bit his bottom lip and wondered if he could get away with snooping. After taking a moment to listen and hearing nothing but the blood coursing through his ears, he figured he was safe. Stiles dug through the top drawer for some paper clips to fashion lock picking tools out of, all the while telling himself he shouldn’t be doing this. The drawer clicked open with ease.

Stiles slid the drawer out, picking up the thick binder. It was a scrapbook, Stiles realized as he turned it over in his hands. He turned the pages over slowly, wonderment at the work the other him had put into it. His hand stilled over a picture of Derek’s happy face before closing the book and putting it away. He probably shouldn’t have seen that. It made something in his chest flutter, though.

“God, there is something seriously wrong with me,” Stiles muttered to himself, picking up the little blue book on ley lines and fey. He would burry himself back into research. It was the only thing he could do.

He was nearing the end of the book when there came a knock on the door. Stiles looked up to see Derek there, leaning against the door jamb. “Hey. Anything good?” he asked, jerking his chin up. Stiles looked down at the book and shrugged.

“Told me what I needed to know.”

“Like what?” Derek asked, coming into the room and taking a seat in one of the empty lounge chairs.

Stiles flipped through the pages, reviewing a few lines he had marked before responding. “I know how I got here?”

“Was that a question?”

Stiles huffed and reread a certain line for he hundredth time. _The bite of a fair folk does not break the skin, but rather sinks into the energy lines within the body, often referred to as chakra or chi in Eastern culture._ “The guy I was hooking up with was a fairy,” Stiles said, trying his best to ignore the way Derek’s jaw tightened and nostrils flared. “He was trying to kidnap me to fairy realm or some shit. I wasn’t supposed to be magic.” He shut the book and set it down on the end table beside him. “And I wasn’t supposed to blast him, but I did. And the kick back or whatever mixed with this…” he trailed off thinking of what the author called it, “venom, I guess, that’s designed for dimensional transportation. Knocked me out of my own timeline.”   Stiles scratched at his shoulder where the fairy bite was. He was itching it less often and he wondered if that meant his time was running out.

They sat in heavy silence for a moment, Stiles’s words floating between them like wisps of incense, something almost tangible. “What does that mean for you?”

Stiles looked away. “Nothing really.” It was an entirely different book that gave him his answer home. The red one on the top of the pile. He hadn’t wanted to read it yet. Stiles’s eyes wandered from the stack of books to the bottom drawer. “Did you ever open it, after?” He asked Derek, tapping his foot lightly against the drawer’s handle.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Derek shake his head. “No,” he said, voice a little raw.

“He would have said yes, you know,” Stiles said, reaching over to open it, “if you ever got the chance to ask him.”

“How can you be sure?” Derek asked.

Stiles looked back, giving him a small smile, hoping it was comforting. He picked up the scrapbook and handed it over. “Because he was already planning your wedding.” Stiles stood as Derek ran a reverent hand over the book, slowly turning the cover open. It was a private moment Stiles knew he shouldn’t be witness to. He picked up the blue book and put it back on the desk, switching it for the red one. “I’ve got some more reading to do,” he said, heading towards the door. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow.”

He left, leaving Derek with his memories.

Alone in his childhood room, Stiles read the red book. Nemeton’s and ley lines, magic and dying. It was simple, really. Stiles got up when he heard his dad. “Hey!” he cheered, stampeding down the stairs. “What’s dinner?”

“Whatever you’re making,” the Sheriff laughed. “I’m beat.”

Stiles took out a couple of beers and checked the freezer for something quick to make. “Stuffed chicken and rice?” Stiles asked.

“Sounds good.”

Stiles set the oven and put the rice dish in the microwave. “You ever drink The Hogfather?” Stiles asked, taking a sip the Coors his dad kept.

“Yeah, it’s your favorite. I’m cheap though. Why?”

“I’ve never actually had it,” Stiles chuckled. “And it’s supposed to be my favorite.”

The Sheriff set down his beer and gave Stiles a critical once over. “You know, I don’t think you’ll ever cease to surprise me.” Twenty minutes later Stiles was setting the table and his dad sighed. “You’re planning on leaving soon, aren’t you.”

Stiles looked up, eyes wide. “How did you know?”

“You’re my son, kid. I know how your brain works. I can see it in you when your mind’s made up.” He gave Stiles a warming look, somewhat sad but full of love. It was almost too much for Stiles to handle. “I’ll miss you.”

“Dad.”

“But I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad I’ve gotten to know you and have you for the time you’ve been here.”

“Dad,” Stiles pleaded.

“No, Stiles, let me say this.” His dad pointed at him in a way that made Stiles feel like a teenager again. “You’re a good kid. Remember that.”

Stiles scooped up some rice off his plate and shoveled it into his mouth. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to admit out loud he made his decision. He didn’t want to talk to his dad about why he wanted to stay or hear more about how nice it’s been that he’s been there. He was going back. He had to.

"Thanks, Dad."

He followed the ley lines to this world and he was going to honor the chance to fix it. Stiles knew what to do, why he needed to do it, and had made up his mind that he just couldn’t stay.


	8. split

Stiles found himself sneaking into the Hale house, hoping nobody was there. He had Derek’s red book in his hand and all the answers he needed in his head. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to see any of the pack knowing what he had to do.

Of course, luck wasn’t on his side. The minute he opened the door using the spare key kept in the false bottom of a fake potted plant, his name was called from somewhere upstairs with a question tacked to it.

“Yeah, sorry!” he called back, hoping Derek stayed upstairs. “Just returning that book.”

He dashed to the den and put the book back on the shelf and then scooped up the other books he had taken down earlier and started putting them back where they belonged. It wasn’t that there was anything _bad_ in them, but he just didn’t feel like sharing. Not when his answers meant him leaving. And he wasn’t sure anyone actually wanted that.

“Hey,” Derek said, standing in the doorway, as Stiles shelved the last book. “You find what you needed?”

Stiles gave him a tight smile. “I guess.”

Derek leaned against the doorframe, his body deflating in a deep exhale. “I wanted to thank you,” he said, voice wavering just the slightest. Derek couldn’t quite meet his eye. “I don’t know how long I would have spent just ignoring that drawer. I’ve tried to leave all his things were he left them when I could.” He shook his head, biting at his lower lip in a nervous manner Stiles had never seen from him, either Derek, before. “It was,” he stopped and cleared his throat. “It was closure I didn’t realize I still needed.”

His eyes seemed to glisten, not quite wet with tears.

Stiles could only nod, unsure what to say. He hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Right,” he faltered, mind searching for words.

“You’re different, you know,” Derek interjected quickly, standing straighter and catching Stiles’s eye. “Than him. There’s lots of similarities, obviously, but you are your own person.”

Stiles huffed. “No kidding.”

Derek shook his head. “No, I mean,” he ran a hand over his close trimmed beard and grimaced a bit. “I mean it’s not a bad thing. If you were exactly the same it would be,” Derek sneered his hands moving in a very Stiles-esque gesture. He was floundering for words. It was a little heartwarming to see Derek like that, obviously picking up slight aspects of Stiles… the other Stiles, in all the time they’ve spent together. “You’re your own person,” Derek eventually said. “You’re the same person but you’re also… your own person.”

Stiles’s mouth twitched in a barely there smile. “You working today?” Derek shook his head. “You wanna get out of here?” he suggested.

“Where?”

Stiles shrugged. “Anywhere, man.” He took another good look at Derek, the way the man seemed unsure in his own body around Stiles, biting his lip, shoulders hunched and foot scuffing the floor. Stiles stood a little straighter and with a little more assertion said, “Someplace you didn’t used to go with him. Let’s not make me Martha, kay?”

Derek stared at him for a bit, his mouth falling open slightly while looking Stiles over. “Was that a Doctor Who reference?” he asked, visibly straining his memory.

Stiles barked in laughter. “Yeah man,” he grinned. “Let’s go. Your pick.”

Derek ended up brining Stiles a town over to an old fashioned ice cream parlor. “It only opened two months ago,” Derek said when they walked in.

“Cool,” he grinned, leading Derek to a booth with the plastic red seating and a wall length window. “Aw, man, this place is awesome. I’m gonna order a banana split and a milkshake because why the fuck not!?”

“Also because you’re spending my money,” Derek said with a coy smirk. “I know your ways.”

“You got me. Although I suggest we split the sundae because I might puke because if one thing’s true about a Stilinski is that they will continue eating desserts until it is all gone.”

Derek agreed with a laugh. “I thought you took your mother’s name?”

Both of them paused at that, Stiles’s face falling just the slightest. Not for long, he thought. He plastered on a grin and kicked Derek’s shin under the table. “Either way it’s my Polish blood, shut up.”

A bubbly girl in a red and white striped dress and white apron came over and took their order, Derek only getting a soda because he claimed he was going to be eating more than half the banana split. Stiles just rolled his eyes and muttered “We’ll see about that.”

“It’s good to see you like this,” Derek said after a moment.

“Like what?”

Derek looked down with a slight shake of his head. “I don’t know. Happy? When you were first here everything was so dark about you. You reeked of sad and upset. It’s still there, like it’s entrenched into your base scent, almost. But there’s no dark cloud in your eyes when you smile most of the time now.”

Stiles sat back, the plastic squishing with that low squeaking sound as he moved. “Dad said I looked happy the other day,” he admitted. “It’s hard to believe.”

“Why?”

Stiles blinked, thinking about it. “Even when I was happy,” he started, parsing through his memories carefully, “I was always on edge. Distrusting, even of myself, unable to relax fully, preparing myself for whatever came next, because something always came next.” He picked up his spoon and tapped it lightly on the table, pushing his nervous energy into some idle rhythm. “For half my life I’ve been preparing for battle. And I’ve been losing people left and right. So even when I’m happy, I’m not.” Stiles tried to smile, but it fell flat. “But you guys don’t have that. I searched for every danger I knew of, and most of it is miles and miles and miles away.”

“Why do you think that difference happened?” Derek asked as the waitress came over with their order.

Stiles waited until she headed back, taking a long sip of his milkshake, before answering. “Lots of reasons,” he explained. “First was because you and… Derek and I didn’t become fast friends and he bit someone who then turned into a kanima, if you remember me explaining about that.” It was one of the things he had discussed with Isaac at the full moon barbeque. “Second, when we were fighting off the alpha pack and the darach, Jennifer took my dad. And Scott’s mom and Allison’s dad. For the final sacrifices.” He scooped up some banana with hot fudge and a bit of vanilla ice cream, savoring it before digging in his spoon again for his next bite. “And to find them, Allison, Scott, and I sacrificed ourselves. What Jennifer did awoke the nemeton, giving power back to it, but what we did made it a beacon again, not just for the supernatural, but for death. We had cheated it out of three lives, after all. It made Beacon Hills a dangerous place for a long time. Things have settled down, but…” he shrugged into a mouthful of sundae.

“Let’s uh,” Stiles took another sip of milkshake, chocolate malt. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Yeah,” Derek agreed. “So, you went to grad school?”

Stiles perked up at that. “Yeah! I studied classics and like magic. It was like Hogwarts but for adults.”

They talked, Stiles rambling on and on about UCLA and his courses and his professors and his classmates. He talked about the criminology courses he had taken at USF and how grueling double majoring had been. Derek talked about why he got the pub and how the pack had gone all into helping him remodel and decorate. They talked until Stiles was bemoaning every bite he took because his stomach couldn’t handle more ice cream but he refused to stop. They talked until the sundae was nothing more than sticky soup. They talked about the good things in their lives, the challenges, the new aspects of each other they hadn’t known.

Derek bumped shoulders with him as they left, heading towards the Camaro. Erica was out in the woods with Malia apparently and wouldn’t miss it. And it was actually Derek’s car, despite what Stiles teased him with.

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned as he climbed into the passenger seat. “My stomach huuuuurrts.”

Derek snorted. “You’re pathetic.” He reached over and shoved Stiles’s head affectionately before turning on the car.

Stiles swallowed a sudden lump in his throat as he looked at Derek. He had been thinking a lot about Derek, both Derek’s, since he learned about their relationship in this world. That night he spent thinking over his every interaction with the grumpy werewolf made him see the potential between them. Seeing it had made all of this harder, knowing his Derek was in love with Braeden and this Derek was in love with someone who was almost him. But he went on, acting as normal as possible. But Derek, this Derek, just kept at it, becoming a friend, becoming someone new, someone with all that same potential but a fresh connection. So Stiles swallowed the lump in his throat and quieted the sudden flutter in his chest, because he knew this wasn’t something he could keep.

“Can you take me back to my dad’s?” he asked as they drove into town.

He could see the way Derek’s forehead crinkled in a frown. It was small, like disappointment. “What about your bike?”

Stiles shrugged and looked back out the window at the passing trees. “I’ll pick it up later.”

If Derek picked up on the lie, he didn’t say.

“We should do this again sometime,” Derek offered as he pulled into the Stilinski driveway. “Maybe with less ice cream. But we could find things to do.”

Stiles looked over his shoulder at Derek as he climbed out of the passenger seat. He leaned back into the car, taking in Derek’s appearance. The man seemed stoic yet soft, like a hard line made in water color. Hopeful. “Sounds like fun,” he said truthfully, unable to say yes. “Bye, Derek.”

“Bye,” Derek said, holding his breath for half a second, the moment dragging out until he said under his breath, “Nik.” Derek looked straight ahead with a frown as Stiles shut the door.

He watched Derek pull out of the drive before going inside. Nik was a wall between them, a boundary they couldn’t dare to cross, no matter how close their toes were. It was just as well. Stiles didn’t know if he could convince himself out of staying if they somehow managed to cross that line. Maybe one day, he pondered, if there was no way to get back, tearing down that wall, crossing that line, would be like floating or falling in slow motion: imperceptibly easy.

Stiles shook the thought from his head and went about tiding up his things. He did a load of laundry and started making a dinner for when his dad got home that wasn’t from the freezer. It was the only way he really knew of how to say goodbye.

Somewhere between folding socks and the smell of chicken simmering in a crock pot, Stiles had the profound notion that maybe he was never supposed to fix this world. Maybe this world was supposed to fix him. It was a stray thought that flew away with a fresh whiff of laundry detergent and Stiles spent the rest of the evening drinking beer and watching a marathon of a random season of Face Off. He wondered at some of their ideas, that maybe the designers were part of the supernatural. He sighed into his beer and waited for his dad to come home for one last time.

He barely slept that night.

It was midday when Stiles found himself out in the woods again. Stiles sat on top of the nemeton, leaning back on his hands. It was simple, really. The sun hit his face and he let the warmth soak in. The stump beneath him still felt cool to the touch, the uneven grain of where it had been cut down teaming with anticipation. Just under the surface the magic was pooling, readying itself for new life.

The rumble of Derek’s motorcycle came on suddenly in the stillness, growing close at an almost too fast speed. Stiles sighed. He half expected this to happen.    

Derek turned into the clearing, his breaks tearing up the forest floor. He cut the engine and kicked the stand with such force Stiles worried he might break the thing. “Seriously, Stiles!”

“What happened to Nik?” he asked.

“He’s apparently,” Derek snapped, “leaving without saying anything.” Stiles looked away, turning his face to the sky. “Really mature. What the hell?”

“How did you find out?” Stiles asked, although he already knew the answer.

“Your dad called me. Said you gave him a goodbye this morning and wanted to make sure I got the chance, too.”

Stiles’s fingers pulled at the frayed wood of the stump absently. “What do you want me to say? Sorry you had to get to know me before I left?”

Derek huffed, dropping his helmet and walking over. His shins hit the bark of the nemeton and Stiles looked back down. He felt like a child being scolded. “All I want to know is why you couldn’t have bothered saying goodbye to all of us.”

Stiles went back to picking at the tree stump. “I didn’t want to give myself a reason to stay.” He knew if he had said goodbye, Allison’s tears, Erica’s fallen face, Boyd’s sad smile and too straight posture, Isaac’s gaze avoiding him, Malia’s hurt confusion, Derek… just Derek – he wouldn’t have been able to turn back. But he needed to do this.

“You’re allowed to stay, you know,” Derek said reaching a hand out. Stiles pulled back slightly and tried to ignore the hurt look on Derek’s face. “We all… We’re happy you’re here. You don’t have to go.”

Stiles shook his head. “No, I do. I have to do this, Derek. I got brought to this place because the magic brought me to a place I could help it.”

“What’s that mean?”

Stiles looked around the clearing, his eyes drawn to the differences he could feel more than see. “The magic in this place is dying, Derek. And I can heal it.” Derek’s concerned face at the corner of his eye stole his attention. Stiles couldn’t help but stare him down as he told him a past this Derek never had to learn. “This tree used to be strong and this town thrived. But then a kitsune trapped a demon under the roots of the nemeton and for generations it stole the natural power of this spot, slowly seeping it away until the tree had to be cut down.”

“So?” Derek asked, his face stern and voice clipped.

“So it’s worse here. Jennifer succeeded in my time. She made all her sacrifices, and then she was killed at the nemeton so all that power she gained went right back into the land and things started to grow again.” It had become a beacon for dark and evil only because Stiles, Scott, and Allison had tampered with the blood magic when they substituted themselves for their parents and then stole back their lives.  “But that never happened here. And the nogitsune spent even more time draining what power was left in this tree. It’s on its last strings and dead magic will kill this town.”

Derek didn’t seem to get it, or believe him, or something. His arms were crossed and he looked at Stiles like he hadn’t just told him that this place was dying. Stiles sighed and ran a tired hand over his eyes. “You can’t see it because you’ve all been here, but this entire town is fading away. You’re all… happy, but there are more abandoned store fronts, more houses for sale. People are leaving and they don’t know why. And the pack, the pack would try too hard to hold on but the place will just crumble between your fingers. I like you all. I can’t just let that happen.”

“Then why can’t you fix it without leaving?” Derek demanded, still angry.

Stiles gave Derek a weak smile. “There’s only two ways to restore magic to a place like this. I can either go on a killing spree like Jennifer, or I can be selfless and sacrifice myself.” At Derek’s panicked face, Stiles rushed to explain. “I don’t think it will kill me. It should just take my magic, but it will bring me back.”

Derek scrutinized him, no doubt trying to suss out a lie. “How can you be sure?”

Stiles ran his hand along the tree rings, watching his fingers trace the varying shades. “The nemeton, the rings of the tree,” he explained. “It’s a naturally occurring ring full of magic. It can get me home, if it weren’t almost dead. So if I pour my magic into it, the fairy ring will do the rest, whether I want it to or not.”

It was ‘not’, he thought, locking eyes with Derek. He didn’t want to go. But he had to. He knew it.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said, his voice shaky with a sudden rush of feeling. “I feel like I just got to know you.”

Time felt like a non-entity in that moment, as if the world had stilled and the wind had held its breath. There was a rustle of leaves as nearby trees stretched their branches and color became almost too saturated.

“I loved Stiles,” Derek blurted, his voice filling the clearing with nothing but a whisper. “I will always love Stiles. But it’s like your dad said. You may not be _him_ but you’re still his son.” Derek shifted the weight on his feet as if he wanted to move forward, to run, but he had nowhere forward to go. “Well I love Stiles,” he howled, a lamentation of something past and a prayer for something new. “And I love any version of Stiles. And as much as I’ve tried to deny it, you are Stiles.”

Derek stepped back, blinking away tears. A wetness dropped onto the corner of his bottom lip and Stiles was surprised to find he was crying too.

“What hurt,” Derek continued, “what _really_ hurt, was that when I found you in the woods, I could tell the moment you looked at me, you didn’t love me back.”

Stiles didn’t know when he had gotten so attached to this man, but he had. They were something new and something good. They were all the potential he ignored in his own time.

“You’ll never be _him_ , but you’re _you_ and I love _you_.” Derek’s words rang clear and Stiles wanted nothing more than to echo them back. “I could,” he vowed, “I really could.”  

“I have to go,” Stiles whimpered. “I have to, you know I do.” He was a blubbering mess, his voice dying out in his throat.

He wanted to say so many things. He wanted to promise that it would all be okay, to assure him that he’d be fine, that they’d both be fine. He wanted to tell Derek he had given Stiles hope, that maybe Stiles could find happiness again. Maybe even love. He wanted to beg forgiveness for leaving and for making Derek lose him twice. He wanted to ask Derek to take care of his father and to tell the others why he had to leave. He wanted to do so many things.

But since before Derek arrived in the clearing with the nemeton, Stiles had been pushing his spark out of his body and into the roots striving for life. And he was weak now. He could feel the magic twisting out of him, tugging at the bite on his shoulder and ripping at the darkness around his heart. It was eager now, to leave him, to feed this new host and pump through the veins of the earth rather than just the veins of a boy.

He wanted to say so much, but Derek had come only just in time for Stiles to say, “Goodbye.”

.

.

.

The thing about dying is that it consumes the whole of you. Even when a body is left behind to burry, the person is gone. Not lost, not changed, but gone, left with nothing but a memory in other people’s hearts.

Whiteness. No air in the lungs yet still breathing. In and out, in and in and out. Breathing in moments, colors, the scent of fresh rain and the tingle of chapped lips after a kiss. Stiles took a deep breath and everything had stopped.

Then everything went black.

With a great wheezing gasp Stiles flailed his arms wildly, seeking purchase in the outskirts of his blurred vision. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t breathe. In in in, rawness in the throat as air forced it’s way to the lungs. Blinking rapidly to clear the dark spots floating in his line of sight, Stiles felt dirt under his nails, under his palms, under his very skin itself.

He pulled at something like it was the only thing tethering him to the ground, and the only thing to pull himself out of it. He was too heavy and too light all at once and wasn’t entirely sure he was holding onto anything.

And then Stiles woke up crying and empty, hollowed out deeper than he had the first time. The world was no longer spinning and no longer still, but moving exactly as it was supposed to. The wind blew softly through the dense canopy. Sunlight shined through the green leaves, a spot catching in his eye and making him squint. Birds chirped. The wildlife teemed around him. Twigs and small pebbles dug into his hands and a tree branch sat uncomfortably underneath his back.

Stiles sat up slowly, reorienting himself as the rush of blood caught him off guard. He blinked the dizziness away and tried to settle the queasiness of his stomach.

“Stiles?”

Stiles bolted upright, turning at the call of his name. His heart beat a rapid staccato in his chest. In a sick parallel, it was Derek. He couldn’t feel the thrum of wolf underneath his skin and Stiles knew it had worked.

“What are you doing out here?” Derek called as he walked closer. “When’d you get back into town?”

“Um,” Stiles cleared his throat. “Just today,” he answered, ignoring the first question. Stiles got to his feet and wiped at his face, hoping Derek wouldn’t comment on it.

Stiles looked around him. He knew this cluster of trees. It wasn’t far from the nemeton. He wondered if their worlds were just the slightest bit off axis to each other. He turned back to Derek, brushing himself off. “How’ve you been? All good?”

“Yeah…” Derek said with a frown. “I’m fine. Are you okay? Because you don’t look good.”

Stiles tried to shake off the memory of another Derek. “Yeah, fine. And Braeden?”

“On a job,” he said, giving Stiles a calculated look.

He tried his best to not show how much it stung that everything had gone back to normal. Ignoring Derek’s looks, Stiles dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “God damnit!” he cursed. It was broken. “Seriously?” Dimensional travel, not good for electronics. Noted. “Um,” Stiles cleared his throat again, “I don’t suppose you could give me a ride?”

Derek quirked an eyebrow. “Sorry, I was out for my run. The car’s still at the loft.”

“You would run for the hell of it,” Stiles scoffed. “Can you at least lead me back to civilization?”

Derek nodded and they began their way out of the woods. “You want to tell me what happened?” Derek asked after a while in silence.

“Not really.”

“Is it something that could potentially be a threat and the pack needs to know about?” he asked carefully.

Stiles shook his head.

“Okay,” Derek said, letting it drop although it was clear he wanted to know more. They reached a path and Derek kept walking with him until they reached the main road, and even further until they were in a place with sidewalks. “You good from here?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

They both hesitated for a moment. Derek reached over and placed a firm hand on his shoulder as a parting gesture and then walked away.  

Stiles stopped off at the diner for a late lunch, his cards valid again. There were a few people at the counter and the same young waitress who had served him and Allison and Erica seated him with a smile. He ate in silence, no one to talk to, overhearing the chatter of petulant teens enjoying the first days of summer and exasperated parents with their children. Still, everything felt too quiet. He paid his bill and walked home, the food settling in his stomach. His house, his dad’s house, felt like a greyer place than he had lived the past few weeks. There was a layer of dust on all the surfaces, boxes were half packed in the living room, and everything felt lonely.

His backpack was still sitting on the kitchen table. He pulled out the chair, the metal bottom scraping against the linoleum, and dropped into the seat. With a heavy sigh he pulled his bag over and searched through the contents, reminding himself of the where he had left off in this life. There was his Master’s diploma, a lunch box filled with sundry magical items and ingredients, and a binder with the information he had about selling the house. His computer was upstairs in his room with his haphazardly unpacked suitcase. Stiles sent an email to his relator saying his phone was broken but he was back in town and could be ready to finish up the paperwork.

The Jeep was still sitting in the garage. He had been smart enough to take a taxi to The Jungle because he knew he planned on getting shitfaced. He took the car out and headed to the florist, picking up two small bouquets, then drove himself to the cemetery. It felt different here, he realized. He couldn’t explain it, but it was. All the ghosts where they’re supposed to be. Stiles found his parent’s graves easily, placing the flowers on top of each. He sat there for a while, unable to say anything.

Eventually it grew dark, and Stiles went home.

The next day he met with his relator and signed some papers and scheduled for movers to come help him pack. He spent most of his time rubbing his temples and praying he didn’t develop a migraine from it all.

The next day he drove to the ice cream parlor and sat in his car, staring at the smiling customers for almost an hour before driving home. He spent the rest of the day looking up places to go far, far from Beacon Hills. He spent hours browsing the internet in his boxers in front of the television eating cheese puffs. Although he kept looking, it didn’t take him long to realize that the place he really wanted to be was the town he was in, but not this town.

The next day he went to Deaton’s.

“Here,” he said, handing over the lunch box of ingredients. “Figured you could use these.” Deaton opened the box, skimming his fingers over its contents. He gave Stiles a look which Stiles just shrugged at. “I lost my magic.”

“How?” Deaton asked, reasonably concerned.

“I gave it away.”

He told Deaton the basics of what had happened to him, realizing halfway through that any missing persons recently were probably due to fairies and Deaton should tell Scott. “Scratch that,” Stiles said. “I’ll tell Scott.”

Stiles headed out to leave, pushing the door open and hearing the jingle, when Deaton stopped him, calling out his name.

Deaton crossed his arms behind the counter, his eyes still calculating, looking Stiles over like a mystery he didn’t know could happen. “Do you want me to look into finding a way to get your spark back?”

Stiles thought about it, letting the fresh air tingle against his skin, the sun soaking into him. He couldn’t feel the earth the way he used to. He lost his connection to the power behind refracted sunlight and rich soil and the air around him. It was no longer something living he could feel as if it were his own breath. The world was just the world, something distant.

“I’m not sure,” he murmured before giving Deaton one last nod and leaving.

Stiles drove out to Scott’s house. He had moved out of his mom’s about four years back, pooling money with his pack to buy a two story with plenty of room in one of the newer housing developments. The neighborhood was full of cookie cutter houses that you can only tell apart by lawn ornaments and maybe a fresh paint on the shutters. A lot of the pack still had their own homes, but Malia lived there since she couldn’t stand her dad anymore, and Liam, because he had felt it was time to “be on his own” and move out of his parent’s place. But all of the pack crashed there from time to time, as a safe haven or just a place to hang out. Stiles hadn’t been there in years. Not since he cursed Scott out after his dad died. He hadn’t really been part of the pack before that, even, drifting away and losing friendships.  

Scott was outside by the time Stiles pulled up into the driveway. His floppy hair and crooked jaw accenting his look of surprise. He didn’t seem upset, though. Stiles cut the engine and hopped out, closing the door awkwardly behind him as he thought about how to start this, what to say.

“Hey, man,” Scott said tentatively.

“Hey,” Stiles replied, pushing his lips together in an almost smile. Stiles cleared his throat and took a few steps towards the house. “You mind if I talk to you for a bit?”

Scott shook his head, “No, no, nah man. Come in.” He rushed up the front steps and opened the door for Stiles, waving him in.

They took seats in the living room, both awkwardly shifting their weight.

“I saw the For Sale sign outside your house,” Scott said.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m… I can’t stay here.”

“I get that.”

Stiles let out a deep breath and shook his head. He was better than this. “Uh, I don’t know if there has been any indication of something weird going on, but you should talk to Parrish if there have been any strange disappearances lately. It’s almost certainly fairies.”

“What?” Scott asked, jerking straight. “Seriously? Fairies?”

Stiles rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help but laugh a bit at Scott. He would always be the same, even as they changed. “Yeah, dude. Fairies. It’s a long story, how I figured it out.”

“Okay,” Scott said, scratching at the side of his face. “I’ll talk to Parrish about it, keep a look out. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

“Was that all… or?” Scott prompted.

Stiles ran a hand over his eyes. He felt so tired. Always tired. “No,” he said, trying to perk himself up. He sat a bit straighter, leaned forward. He really looked at Scott, at the man he’d become. “No. I wanted… I needed to tell you I don’t blame you. Not anymore.” Stiles cleared his throat again. It was hard thinking about his dad. Not the one he had spent a month with, but the one he had lost years ago. “You were always supposed to be the one saving people, you took up that mantle, but so had I, and I was the one who left Beacon Hills. So when my dad died, and you were here and I wasn’t, I blamed myself as much as you but it was so much easier just to be angry and to hate and to say it was your fault. And I’m sorry.”

He had spent too much time mourning the loss of his friend in that other world to not even try to make things a bit better in this one.

“Stiles…” Scott started, his name dangling in the space between them.

Stiles shrugged. “I don’t think we’ll ever be friends again, not really. Not the way we were in high school. We’ve both changed too much.” He made sure his gaze was steady with Scott’s. “But you’ll always be my brother.”

Scott stood, reaching a hand out to Stiles. He took it and let Scott pull him to his feet and into and tight hug. “Yeah man,” Scott said. “Always.”

“I should go,” Stiles said, pulling out of the hug. “You know, before Malia comes home and finds me.”

Scott winced a bit exaggeratedly. “Yeah, that sounds like a smart plan.” Scott followed him outside to his car. “Hey,” he called, catching Stiles’s attention. “Don’t be a stranger, yeah?”

Stiles gave a weak smile. “Yeah.”

The next day Stiles packed up and left town.


	9. carve

Derek came downstairs to the racket going on in his kitchen. Malia liked experimenting with foods but he didn’t quite trust her not to burn the place down. He was always cautious about fire. He stilled, though, as he always did, as his eyes landed on the photo on the wall just at the bottom of the staircases.

“Hey, it’s okay! We’re just making cookies,” Allison assured him, poking her head out of the kitchen with a dimpled smile. “I’m the one handling the oven.” She caught sight of where Derek was looking and took a few steps nearer, placing a hand on Derek’s elbow. There was a photo of Stiles, or rather  Nik, Isaac had taken at the full moon he spent here. He was looking off, not knowing the camera was on him, that haunted look in his eyes and a warm smile toying at his lips. “I’m sure he’s fine, whatever he’s doing now.”

Derek looked down at her. Allison had been heart broken when she learned Stiles had left. Maybe more so than himself.

“Oatmeal chocolate-chip?” he asked, brushing past her and into the kitchen.

“You know it!” Allison cheered, shaking off some of her sorrow. “Come on, help us scoop the batter.”

Derek let himself be dragged into the cookie making business. It had been almost a year since Stiles left, disappearing before him as if he was soaked into the very tree itself. A part of him wished he had never bothered to get to know the man. It would have been easier to say goodbye to a doppelganger, to a shadow of someone who didn’t belong. It was much harder to watch someone he could feel himself falling in love with vanish.

At the same time, the past year had taught him Stiles had been right. The forest felt more alive than he ever remembered it. There were new creatures moving into town: spirits in the forest that lead people safely to the paths, a Naiad seeking refuge in their lake, the new deputy who transferred in Stiles had told them about who didn’t even know what he was. Even Lydia Martin moved back in to town, rebuying her grandmother’s lake house. She had reconnected with Allison and explained how she had gotten a grant to work on a thesis of hers and decided to come back and convert part of the house into a lab. NASA apparently lets Lydia Martin do what she wants because she’s that smart.

The town was busier.  The local farmer’s market had more crops and more people came from around to buy there.  There were new families moving in, and the trees seemed to sing, everything blossoming brighter when spring came.

The town had been dying so slowly, no one had noticed but Stiles. And now it was living again. Derek just wished Stiles were here to see what his sacrifice helped change.

“Oh, Derek!” Malia cheered, some stolen batter in her mouth. “You’re going to the station later, right?”

The Sheriff had asked Derek to consult on a case. There was a series of break-ins recently that John thought might not be quite human based. It had something to do with the way nothing was missing but people kept finding… it was unclear. John said he just needed to see it.

“Yeah,” Derek sighed. “You want me to bring him some?” he asked, gesturing to the tray of cookies currently in the oven.

“Yessss,” Malia grinned before jumping up and kissing Derek’s cheek. “Oh! And Cora called. She’s coming up to visit soon and wants to take me to Disney. You’re coming, too.” She stated fiercely. She reminded him of Laura more and more. “Family bonding! You can’t refuse.”

Derek laughed, pulling her in for a side hug. “Yes, okay. Like I would say no to Disney.” Seeing Malia happy always cheered him up. The pack often made fun of him because he couldn’t quite seem to say no to her. “Come on, we have cookies to make.”

Half an hour later Derek left with a tin of warm cookies with a parting, “Don’t burn the house down.” When Derek reached the station, he walked in with the tin open, offering cookies to everyone at their desks.

“Hey, Derek,” Parrish said, reaching over his shoulder to grab a cookie. He gave Derek a wink before heading to the break room.

Isaac kept saying he should go for it. It’s been two and a half years since Stiles died and a year since Stiles… since Nik… since _Stiles_ was here for a month. Derek lamented the confusion of his life. And Jordan was nice, but Derek wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if after everything in his life, he’d ever be ready.

“Hey, Sherrif,” Derek said as he turned into his office. “Brought cookies,” he offered, putting the tin down.

“Allison make these?” he snorted with a wry grin before taking one. “Because the last time you tried to make cookies they didn’t turn out so great.”

“Allison and Malia.”

“Oh, that’s a gamble then,” he laughed, biting into one. “Not bad. Come on, I’ve got stuff to show you.”

The two men set about for a tiring day of work. Not many incidents like this had occurred - supernatural in nature that is - since Stiles left, but there were a few. Mostly harmless, never anything major. Still, it took all of Derek’s knowledge and ability to scent far past the average person to solve the little mysteries.

“Hey,” John said, patting his arm a bit. “Why don’t you come over. Melissa had the day off and told me she’s making real Mexican so that means they’ll be enough for six of us. Or two of us and a werewolf. You in?”

Derek laughed. “Yeah, sure.” There was a game that night they would both want to watch anyway. “I’ll follow you.” Sure enough, when Derek reached the Stilinski household, everything was beginning to smell of spices that reminded him of the cousins he lost who had lived in Mexico. She greeted them both with a warm smile and they relaxed onto the couch.

John flipped the channel to the game just as Derek’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He dug it out to see Lydia’s name and the text excerpt: _This book doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know wh_

He slid his thumb over the screen to get the full thing.

_This book doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what you could possibly want with it so much you’re having me translate it, but you owe me, Hale. Frankly, I’m bored. So you better buy me something pretty. I will also take a large gift card to Starbucks._

Derek snorted. In a stupor after Stiles left he had gone through his library to try and find the book he had last borrowed. He gave up after his initial whirlwind through the books, but later, when tiding up, he came across the ledger this world’s Stiles had used to catalog everything and decided to try again. He found it, months later. But it was in Polish. After Lydia came to town he asked for her help. Despite her frequent texts about how much he was now in her pocket, Lydia was being a good sport about it all. She hadn’t known Polish so she took it as challenge. Derek was pretty sure she was fluent now.

 _That’s fine. Thanks._ he sent back.

He didn’t think he’d actually find anything in the book, nothing that Stiles hadn’t told him, nothing that could change things. But he wanted to know, either way. It would be like the wedding scrapbook. Closure.

Derek chatted a bit with John as the game played.  When it went to break he helped Melissa in the kitchen. She really was making food for an army. Melissa shrugged when he asked why. “It’s my culture, and with my life being as busy as it is, I often default to something else. It’s nice, every once in a while, to lose myself in the cooking my abuela taught me.” Derek smiled, thinking of the way Stiles taught him how to make his mother’s meatloaf, and then of Malia who was desperate to try and learn how to cook everything. It was such a human thing and it connected them all.

“Go yell at John to set the table, we’re just about done.”

Ten minutes later they were all seated and eating. Halfway through his third plate, Derek froze. Something tingled at the edge of his senses, something foreign and pulsing and… He turned his head to the force, listening for a heartbeat and trying to scent the distance.

“What is it?” Melissa asked, already tense worried. She had been filled in about the supernatural sometime in the last year, he wasn’t sure when. It must have been one hell of a conversation. While she was okay with the people she knew (Derek and his pack), the idea of something else, something strange and invading always put her on edge.

“I’m not sure,” Derek said, taking a deep breath. Then his eyes widened, catching the hints of the man as if he were fading slowly with spikes as if he were right under his nose, the same as when he caught his scent in the woods a year ago. “It can’t…” he trailed off, getting to his feet. He stood in front of the door, listening for the heart beat that kept pounding in his ears. “It’s…”

John came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Derek?”

There came a hurried pace of footsteps and then stillness. A knock on the door.

.

.

.

Stiles banged on the door, twitching nervously. He hadn’t been back to Beacon Hills since attempting to make up with Scott and it really did something to his nerves. Eventually the door slid open with a thud and a tired looking Derek was giving him the stink eye.

“Stiles?” he asked, rubbing a hand through his bed head.

“I know that’s what your nose told you before you even opened the door, big guy,” Stiles said, trying not to react to Derek’s appearance in nothing but sweatpants. “Can I come in?”

Derek quirked an eyebrow at the question, probably surprised Stiles bothered to ask at all. Still, he waved his arm back and let Stiles in before shutting the metal door. The loft looked the same, never changing in all these years except maybe a few more personal touches Stiles could attribute to Braeden. Not that she was the decorating type, but more that she moved in and had a bit more personality that Derek in terms of _things_.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked, flopping onto the couch and turning on the lamp on the end table. “When did you get back to Beacon Hills?”

Stiles bit at the quick of his thumb nail. “Just now,” he said, meaning it. Just this minute. He drove into town and straight up to Derek’s loft. “I, sorry. I should have considered you were sleeping, but I am so wired right now.”

Derek snorted. “I noticed.”

“Look, I’ll get to the point and then out of your hair. Just… do you have the books salvaged from the fire?”

Derek looked up, startled and seemingly awake now. “I… yeah. How did you even know there were books?”

Stiles shrugged, chewing on his nail bed. “It’s a long story. Can I take a look? There’s one I need.”

Derek gave him a once over, his eyes trying to pull apart the riddle Stiles wasn’t sharing, before nodding in a sigh of defeat long founded in their younger years. “Yeah, okay. Follow me.” Derek led him to a storage room and dragged out a trunk it would have taken three human’s to carry. It was large, and full to the brim with books. “If it’s not in there, there’s another one, but I have to dig around for it. I’m going back to bed.”

Stiles thanked him and let him leave. It wouldn’t take long to find the same small red book that got him here.

Of course, that meant, two hours later Derek was handing him a mug of coffee. Stiles hadn’t found the book and had gotten distracted by some of the other ones he stumbled across. He could understand why other him spent so much time in the den.

“So what prompted this visit?” Derek asked, moving things around to get to the other trunk of books.

Stiles bit at his nail nervously. “I broke up with my boyfriend,” he said. It wouldn’t mean anything to this Derek, but he still felt he had betrayed him somehow. “Three months, my longest relationship ever,” he snorted, starting to babble. “You know, I tried. I really did. I tried the whole ‘being normal’ thing and getting on with my life, but I can’t let myself, it seems,” Stiles huffed, greedily rushing to open the second trunk once Derek had it out enough to get at.

“Did something happen,” Derek asked, confused, “that I don’t know about? Because you acted weird the last time I saw you, too.”

Stiles glanced up from his rummaging. “More than you would believe,” he said.

Some minutes later Derek spoke up again. “You _do_ smell different,” he said like it was some sort of revelation. “It’s the,” he sniffed the air again. Stiles looked at him, slack jawed. “It’s that extra…” Derek made a motion like he was grasping for words.

“Spark?” Stiles offered, sitting back on his heels, the books in his hands forgotten.

“Yeah,” Derek said, a bit in wonder, looking Stiles in the eye. “I felt like there was _something_ off the last time I saw you but I couldn’t pin point it. It’s your…” Derek trailed off, realizing what it was, what that could mean. “Stiles, what the hell happened?”

Stiles bit his lip, looking down at the faded and scorched leather bound books in his hands. “I lost my magic. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Is there something here that would help you get it back?”

Stiles shrugged, still not looking at Derek. “That, or,” he shrugged again, “maybe help me harness it without actually having it.”

“How would that work?”

Stiles rubbed at his face, dropping the books in front of him. “I have no freaking clue.”

Derek sighed and reached a hand out, waiting for Stiles to take it. When he did, Derek pulled Stiles to his feet. “Come on,” he said. “Take a break. You look like you’re about to pop a blood vessel.” Stiles looked back to the half unpacked trunk of books but ultimately followed Derek. He was led to the kitchen and ushered into one of the bar stools.

It was funny, Stiles thought. As different as the loft and the renovated house could be, they had some key features that were the same. Open connection of spaces instead of doorways for a lot of the place, a high top counter in the kitchen with bar stools, and a bowl of apples.      

“How’s it going with Braeden?” he asked, because he was a masochist.

“Good,” Derek said, sticking bagels in the toaster. “She’s catching a flight from Baltimore tomorrow so it’ll be nice to have her back for a while.” He pulled down two glasses and went to the fridge. “You like orange juice?”

“Meh,” Stiles answered. “You have milk?”

Derek pulled out the carton of OJ and jug of milk.

“You think you’re going to marry her?” Stiles asked as he watched the milk pour into the glass, not really able to look at Derek.

Derek laughed, a soft sound, loving. “I don’t really think I’m the marrying type,” he said, putting the glass in front of Stiles and pouring his own drink. “More to the point, I don’t think Braeden is the marrying type. But, even if she were,” he shrugged. “That just sounds like a whole lot of forever for someone with my kind of life. Even if I met someone else,” he shook his head, putting the jugs back into the fridge. “I can’t really picture myself and… that.”

“But you love her?” Stiles prompted.

“Yeah,” Derek said bashfully, ducking his head a bit to hide a grin. “Yeah, I do.”

Stiles swallowed. He always knew this Derek loved Braeden, but knowing this Derek couldn’t picture himself ever married and the other Derek had wanted to propose… And it was Stiles that was the difference in their lives. He couldn’t help but wonder if it had gone the other way around. If other Derek had found himself in this world, with this Derek dead and Stiles a stranger and Braeden in love with the wolf. Or if this Derek had ended up there, with a pack with a different alpha and a mourning Stiles, but no Braeden. It was too much to think about. Stiles shook his head, clearing it of the twisted timelines and what ifs. This Derek had the person he loved, that was what mattered.

“So what about you and this boyfriend?” Derek asked, pulling out the cream cheese.

Stiles bit at his thumb nail again. “I moved to San Fran and got a job bussing tables, living with someone off craigslist. Fell into this relationship with one of my coworkers. But everything about it sucked.”

“Why?”

Because it wasn’t you. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t right. Stiles downed half his milk, avoiding the question. It had been four months since he came back. He didn’t think he belonged here anymore.    

Troy had been a good guy. He was open and cared and liked Stiles and knew nothing about his past life. They dated and they fucked and whenever Stiles spent the night he lay awake thinking of all things he could never share with Troy. And sometimes when they were together Stiles would start wishing the blonde hair and smooth cheeks were darker, sharper, full of scruff. He’d seek out a broader set of shoulders in a crowd and think there’s something in his chestnut brown eyes and Stiles would realize he was searching for teal-hazel ones.  

“I really think there’s a right person out there for me,” Stiles said, eventually. “And I think I’ve already met him.”

Derek was silent for a moment. “And you need magic to get back to him?”

“Got it in one,” Stiles said sadly.

They ate breakfast with a steady stream of back and forth, short sentences with little meaning with lots of silence between them. It was never uncomfortable, though. Stiles wondered what it would be like to eat breakfast with Derek. With his Derek. Because somewhere along the line, the two men had switched.

Once Stiles was brushing crumbs off his fingers, he went back to scouring the books. It wasn’t much longer before Stiles picked up a thick black book to find the small red one tucked underneath. Stiles cheered, pulling it out of the trunk and flipping through its pages. Before he could even read a word, Derek yanked it out of hands. “Hey!”

Derek shook his head. “Nope. You put all my books back first.” Stiles looked back to the piles he made and groaned. “This is not English,” Derek said, frowning into the book.

Stiles laughed, beginning to pack up the mess. “It’s Polish. Although it talks a lot about Celtic lore. Ley lines are universal throughout mythology, though.”

Derek hummed, turning the book, no doubt trying to make sense of one of the diagrams.

When Stiles finished packing everything away he marched over and held his hand out for the book. “Can I have that now… please?”

Derek smirked and handed it over. “Keep it,” Derek said. Stiles blinked, surprised. “I’m not reading them,” Derek explained, “and I don’t know anybody who knows Polish other than you. Keep it. I have to go, yeah, but maybe I’ll catch you around sometime?”

Stiles followed Derek out of the loft but shook his head. “Maybe, but…”

“But you want to get somewhere else, I get it. And Stiles?” he said, heading over to the stairs down. “Good luck.”

Stiles stood there, in the hall.  From the window he could see the parking lot and Derek’s Camaro. “Thanks,” he muttered, frozen to the spot until the car was long gone from his line of sight. After steeling himself, Stiles gathered his things and drove to Deaton’s. He’d read over the book there, calling on the vet’s offer to help.

By the end of the day he was sending an email to C:Breax, cashing in that favor. The next time Stiles was in Beacon Hills was eight and a half months later. He crashed a night at Scott’s, stepping around Malia’s cold glare with apologetic frowns.

“I’m sorry we were poison to each other,” he told her when they were left alone in the kitchen. “And that we couldn’t seem to stop punishing each other for our own insecurities. I know you hate me, but this is goodbye, and I just wanted you to know,” he shrugged, unsure of what he was even trying to say.

“I don’t hate you,” she said, still glaring. “But I can’t let go of the past. I moved on, yeah, but,” she shrugged, “when you’re here it will always hurt.”

Stiles nodded. “I know.” He walked over and after a quick debate, kissed her cheek. “But like I said. This is goodbye.”

Malia leaned forward, hard lines curving into his body, not asking to be held but just letting her have this moment. “Where are you going?” she asked into the folds of his shirt.

“Somewhere I can’t come back.” Stiles put his hands on her shoulders and held her at an arm’s length, making her meet his eye. “Take care of yourself, okay? Promise me that much.”

Malia nodded, her jaw clenched and back tense. “You too.”

His thumb brushed her arm affectionately before he dropped his hands. “Yeah. I will.”

Her glare lessened a bit, something breeching a smile at her lips. “I like this,” she said, poking at the piercing at his lip and breaking the tension. “Make’s you look mysterious.”

Stiles snorted. “Okay.”

“You should get a haircut, though.” She ruffled his floppy, starting to curl hair. “Oh my god, do you have earrings, too?”

“Only the cartilage piercings,” he hadn’t gotten the lobes done, “and they’re not the only body mods I had to get. I’m taking them out once I get there.”

Scott came back then, looking between them with awkward tilt of his lips. “That have anything to do with why I can’t contact you wherever you’re going?”

Stiles gave a sheepish smile. “Just maybe.”

“You going to share where that place is?” Scott prodded.

Stiles shook his head. It wasn’t like they had really talked since they were still teenagers. “Someplace I fit,” Stiles supplied, pulling Scott in for a hug. “Someplace I can stay.”

Scott clapped him on the back and pulled back. “I’m happy for you, man.”

Stiles said his thanks and headed off, one last stop before making his way to Deaton’s. Derek wasn’t at the loft when he got there, Braeden saying as much when she opened the door. He handed over the book to her, the worn red cover having taken some sort of meaning to him in the time he’d possessed it. “Tell him I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye, then.”

Braeden frowned, hearing the weight behind his words. “He’ll be sorry he missed you. He always considered you a good friend, you know.”

Stiles looked up at that, surprised. He had always taken Derek’s words and actions in this line as begrudging acquaintanceship. Sure, he had seen their potential, but not until it was pointed out to him and he thought about it for a long time. Maybe even here they had been closer than he thought.

“I’m glad he has you,” Stiles told her, the sincerity in his voice surprising himself. “He deserves someone good in his life, and you’ve always been good for him. So, thank you.” He thanked her because she did what he was unable to do, because he hadn’t even tried. “I’ve got to get going.” It was the solstice and he had a limited time frame. “But it was good seeing you. And don’t let Derek worry about me, if he does,” he shrugged, not knowing what goes on in this Derek’s mind. “I’m going someplace with people I can depend on.”

He heard Braeden’s quiet “Okay,” as he turned and walked away.

Stiles headed over to the vet’s office and waited around out back until Deaton was ready. It didn’t take long for the bald man to exit, a bag over his shoulders. “You sure about this?” the vet asked as he headed away from the parking lot and towards the line of trees not far from the building.

Stiles quickly passed him, stepping into the preserve with a wild thought of the future. He looked over his shoulder and smirked. “I made it this far, didn’t I?” he asked, licking over the onyx lip ring he had to get. “Get your butt in gear, old man.  

“How was Ireland?” Deaton inquired as they trekked their way through the woods.

Stiles rubbed at his shoulder with a grimace. “Stupid. I’m never going back if I can help it. I don’t care how pretty it was.”

Deaton hummed in what Stiles could only assume was agreement.

Stiles had spent the last six months there, needing to seek out some vital information from the source and in his time there gain the necessary stones and metals and symbol in order to do what his mishap of drunken magic and fairy venom had done. Ireland had been a mess of trying to convince secret societies he was legit and knew what he was talking about and should be allowed into their little circle of information.

He also found out what C:Breax was, using his connection to get into some of these groups in the first place. A freaking cyber hacker who’s been around since before computers, he was actually a fucking centaur. How Danny always found these people, he would never know.  

At first he had gone to Poland, but fay were more closely tied to the Druids. And also they had a better library than the Polish warlocks he met.

They reached the clearing with the nemeton and they both got to work. Stiles climbed on top of the stump and began inscribing runes onto the rings in chalk as Deaton settled the talismans from his bag on the ground around the giant stump.

“You never did tell me,” Deaton started as he placed another talisman in place, “why you wanted to go back.”

Stiles looked up, brushing his hands together to knock the chalk residue off. “Because at some point I realized that if I was put into a different situation at the start of all this, I would have made all the same choices he would,” he said, thinking about the other Stiles. “And there’s a place for me in that world, that there isn’t here.”

It had taken him four months to realize that, on some level, and then another eight thinking about it every day, trying to find a way back to a world that felt more like home than the one he was born to. He knew his every reason and his every reason not to.

“Let’s just do this thing.” Stiles tugged off his shirt, rolling his shoulders back and rotating his neck. He shook his limbs out and shoved his shirt into his bag. Deaton lit the candle and Stiles took out the specially engraved dagger. Stiles checked he had everything he needed and pulled the bag’s straps over his arms and handed the dagger’s hilt towards Deaton. “You wanna do the honors?”

With deference, Deaton took the dagger in one hand and grabbed onto Stiles’s wrist with the other, his grip like steel. “There’s no coming back,” the man said.

“I know.”

Deaton nodded once and then willed his energy into the runes surrounding Stiles and into the metal at his fingers. Stiles could almost feel it, a slight tingle like the memory of a flavor on his tongue. Then, in one swift motion, Deaton plunged the dagger into the center of Stiles’s chest, holding Stiles still as he shouted in pain. Blood ran down in streaming rivlets, red rivers coating Deaton’s hand, the blade stuck between his ribcage, soaking the waistband of his pants where the blood was running down his chest. It pooled in his lap and dripped from Deaton’s hand, landing on the rings of the tree.

And Stiles gasped. And Stiles screamed. And Stiles breathed.

 

 

 

 

 


	10. dwell

Clutching tight to the front of his shirt and pressing down with the heel of his palm against the center of his chest, Stiles knocked at his front door.

He held his breath, his head still spinning a bit and his gut rolling, and waited.  When the door swung open his eyes latched onto the sight of his father.  His dad’s eyes were wide, mouth hanging open a bit in shock.  Stiles could hardly blame him.  It’s not like he had a way of giving prior notice. 

“Hey,” he wheezed a bit, blinking back tears.  “You still have my fake IDs?” Stiles quirked his lips in an attempt at amusement.

“Stiles!”  His father rushed him to pull him into a deep hug.  Stiles winced, a throb of pain shooting through him.  He had patched himself up as best he could in the forest, but it was still fresh.  “What’s wrong?” his dad asked, on alert from the sound Stiles made.  He pulled back swiftly and looked Stiles over.

“He smells like blood.”

Stiles shot his eyes up, paling.  He hadn’t planned on this, he hadn’t meant to see Derek so soon.  He – Stiles winced again, clutching at his chest.  He felt his dad pull him inside, shutting the door behind him, and then heard a gasp.  He looked up and wanted to roll his eyes.  Of course his dad would have Derek _and_ Melissa over the night he comes back. 

“Stiles?” she whispered, her voice shaking. 

“Sort of,” he replied with a grunt. 

“Parallel universes,” his dad said, shooting Melissa an apologetic look.  “I’ll explain later.  Right now…” 

John looked at Stiles, who pulled his hand away from his chest and cursed.  There was blood seeping through the fabric.  In a flurry they all set in motion, Stiles too nauseous and dizzy to follow everything.  Derek was leading him to the living room, yanking the backpack off his shoulders and then tugging his shirt up and off. 

“You could have just asked,” Stiles tried to joke, but it fell flat.  Derek glared at him and pushed him gently into lying down on the couch.  “Good to see you, too.”

Derek sighed, his eyes set hard and lips thin.  He kneeled next to Stiles and pulled away the soaked gauze.  Stiles felt Derek’s eyes on the knife wound like fire on his skin. 

“Stiles, _what did you do_.”

Stiles reached over to Derek, forgetting the blood spotting his hand, and brushed his fingers against Derek’s cheek.  Everything was moving slowly and too fast.  Like the first time he traveled here, he wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t just dreaming.  “I came back.”

Before Stiles could register the look on Derek’s face, the man was being pushed out of the way by Melissa.  The sensation of cold water lapping at his chest as she cleaned the area took his thoughts away. 

“Hey, Melissa,” he breathed, trying to not let the pain show in his voice.  “Sorry you had to meet me this way.”

“It’s okay,” she croaked out, still sufficiently freaked.  She couldn’t meet his eye, keeping herself focused on the task at hand.  He wondered how much of it was because doing this was the only thing keeping her from going crazy in the moment. 

“I wouldn’t worry too much,” he informed her.  “Deaton did a good job of not hitting anything important.”

He felt the pain fade, and his eyes trailed over to Derek.  His hand was resting on Stiles’s ankle, black veins crawling up the other man’s arm.  When he caught Derek’s eye, Derek brushed his thumb back and forth a few times, comforting him.  Stiles mouthed “thank you” with a stupid grin on his face.  Because he was back.  He had made it.  And Derek was right there.  Stiles slipped his eyes shut, the exhaustion and the sickness and the injury of the trip pulling at him all at once now that his heart was starting to slow down with the loss of adrenaline.

“Go to sleep,” Derek told him.  “I’ll be right here.”

So Stiles did.  When Stiles woke up, he was in his bed and there was a warm light coming from a table lamp and the sound of stillness.  Fingers traced along his shoulder, a pattern Stiles was still only starting to recognize as part of his body.  He turned his head to see Derek sitting in his desk chair pulled up to the side of the bed, eyes focused on the stretch of ink curved around Stiles’s shoulder, covering the bite and expanding past it. 

“Hey,” Stiles whispered.

Derek looked up, his eyes smiling at him although his face never changed, before returning to the mark on Stiles’s body. 

“It’s the Celtic Tree of Life,” he said softly.  The intricate knots connected the branches to the roots in a circle.  It was a powerful symbol, one that also represented the nemeton in Beacon Hills.  “It helped me get here.”  Derek only nodded, staying silent.  “Hey,” he said again to get Derek’s attention.  Derek held his gaze this time.  “I can’t tell you how many needles I braved to see you again.”

That gained a reaction out of Derek.  His mouth twitched upwards until Derek couldn’t hold back the smile and his eyes crinkled a little at the corner.  He carefully picked up Stiles’s hand and laced their fingers together. 

“Stiles got his tattoo when he turned twenty.  He wanted to mark himself as part of the pack and got the triskelion on his chest so that if he stood behind me they would line up.”  Derek eyed the row of stitches on Stiles’s chest.  Stiles cleared his throat, unsure of himself suddenly with looking at Derek. 

He didn’t want Derek to forget the relationship he had with other Stiles, but he also didn’t know how to react to being talked about so reverently when Derek had said he could love him… when Stiles had thought they were going to try _them_.  “Not to mention all the piercings,” Stiles smirked, licking at his lip ring.  It still felt weird and foreign.  “That was seven individual times someone just jabbed a needle through my skin while I sat there, petrified.” 

They were all different metals or stones needed to help mimic the magic in someone without it anymore.  It was so much more complex tapping into something you didn’t have naturally.  So Stiles got a tattoo.  And his lip pierced.  And three cartilage piercings on one ear and two on the other, and the one in his septum that couldn’t easily be seen. 

“You lost your magic,” Derek stated, the crinkle around his eye dropping a bit.  Stiles nodded.  “Then how?”

“The right mix of things,” Stiles said, giving Derek’s hand a squeeze.

“Why?”

It gave Stiles pause.  “You can’t possibly mean that,” he said, a sudden wash of anger and frustration.  Derek was almost acting like his old self, untrusting and confused. 

“Humor me,” Derek said, bringing their twined hands up to his lips.  He didn’t kiss Stiles’s skin, but it was a near thing, his breath ghosting over the back of Stiles’s hand, warm and heavy.

Stiles gulped.  “Because I followed the ley lines, Derek.”

“If the ley lines you should follow,” Derek said, frowning, pulling the words from a tainted memory.  Stiles wondered how much Derek looked into what had happened before and after he left.  “And…”

“Your dwelling at the end,” Stiles filled in, “and you find your presence has been hollowed.  Derek, I followed the ley lines back to my own world, my dwelling, and found that there wasn’t a spot for me anymore.  I had lost my magic, I had lost my pack a long time ago, I had lost my family.  And I tried to start over, I really did.  I moved away and I tried to carve myself a new hole in the world but the entire time I felt like I didn’t fit.  My place in that world had been hollowed out long before I left the first time.  But here, even though we’re not the same person, Stiles left a hole and my edges may be different but it’s still a spot I can fill.  It’s still where I’m meant to be.”

Derek rested his forehead against their knuckles, letting out a deep breath.  He looked up at Stiles through his lashes, still searching for something.  “What about making amends.”

“I came back,” Stiles whispered. 

There was a beat, and then Derek was dropping his hand and surging forward.  He hovered carefully over Stiles, but Derek’s hands reached out, grasping at either side of his face and pressing their lips together like a strong gust of wind.

Stiles let out a needy moan, desperate and needing more, needing all of it crammed into that brief second their lips touched.  He couldn’t count how long he had imagined this.  Derek’s stubble scrapped against his chin and Stiles pushed up, kissing him again, not letting the momentum slow.  He ran his fingers through Derek’s hair, tugging and pulling him closer all at once.  Derek’s chest dipped too low and brushed against Stiles and he hissed, causing Derek to immediately pull back. 

“This,” Derek said sternly, poking at Stiles’s chest an inch below the wound, “was stupid.  You could have died.”

Stiles didn’t point out that Derek wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t work.  “But I didn’t,” he said.  “And I’m here, so I have no more reasons to do recklessly stupid things.”

Derek’s face softened at that.  He brushed aside the hair clinging to Stiles’s forehead, a touch so loving Stiles felt like his heart was going to explode. 

“Hey,” Stiles whispered, a stupid smile on his face.

“Hey,” Derek said fondly.  Derek leaned over and kissed Stiles on the forehead.  “Welcome back.”

Stiles couldn’t help but hear how much it sounded like _Welcome Home_. 

“Go to sleep, Stiles,” Derek said.  “We can talk in the morning.”

Stiles looked Derek over again and scooted over.  “Lie with me?”  Derek hesitated, looking at the space on the mattress like it was something to be fearful of.  “Come on, even werewolves have to sleep.”  He caught Derek’s eye, silently begging him to come to bed, to let them have this. 

Derek bit his lip but nodded, slipping in beside Stiles.  Stiles let himself curl in towards the warm body, still careful of his chest.  Derek turned off the lamplight and in the darkness all there was, was the warmth of Derek’s body and the smell of Derek’s skin. 

“You smell different,” Derek said.

Stiles hummed, already drifting off.  “I lost my magic,” he explained.

“You smell _different_ ,” Derek said again, as if it were some sort of miracle.  And suddenly it hit Stiles what that would mean to this Derek.  Thr fact that Stiles smelled different meant that he wasn’t _that_ Stiles, and not even Derek’s senses could trick him anymore. 

“Yeah,” he murmured into Derek’s chest where Stiles had pillowed his head.  He felt soft fingers card through his hair until he fell asleep. 

When Stiles woke up again he was alone and the sun was peeking through his bedroom curtains, nearing midday.  There was a strong smell of pancakes drifting up from the kitchen and his stomach growled.  Stiles winced as he rolled out of bed, accidentally knocking his chest. 

Someone had placed his bag at the foot of the bed and left his Nikodem IDs on the end table.  He changed into a pair of fresh clothes from the dresser, foregoing a shower for the moment.  Then he rummaged through his bag for the photo he had begged off of Scott and slipped it into the pocket of his hoodie. 

He found Derek at the stove, a stack of pancakes next to him and another fluffing up in the frying pan.  His dad and Melissa were already at the table, plates coated with syrup and stacks half eaten.  When his dad caught sight of him coming down the stairs, he jumped up and rushed over, hauling Stiles into a careful hug. 

“Hey, kid.  You scared the bejesus out of me.”

“Sorry,” he huffed into his dad’s collar.  He saw Melissa, awkward and fidgeting at the table, looking at him with uncertainty.  “Um,” he said, pulling away from his dad, “hi.”  His gaze shot to Derek before he looked back to Melissa and walked over.  “So…” he started, lost for words as he shifted back and forth on his feet in front of her.

“John,” her voice cracked.  Melissa cleared her throat.  “John told me you’re, oh god,” she ran a hand through her thick curls, “you’re from another… timeline?”

Stiles nodded and pulled out the seat next to her and sat down.  He reached into his hoodie and pulled out the photo, careful not to let it bend.  “I’m assuming you’ve been filled in on the whole,” he glanced over to Derek.

Melissa nodded, a little curtly and shaky.  “Werewolves, yeah.”

Stiles flipped the picture over and slid it to her.  She gasped, bringing a hand up over her mouth and the other delicately hovering over the crowd of smiling people. 

“Scott, in my world, got turned back when we were teens, instead of,” he stopped himself from saying it.  “I thought you should know he’s doing okay.  That’s his pack.  He’s an alpha, like Derek.  And he takes care of people.  He always does the right thing.”  Melissa, Derek, or Ralph weren’t in this picture.  He thought that might freak her out if she saw herself, and maybe make her feel odd if her ex was there.  Derek just wasn’t in any of the photos at all, it seemed.  But Malia was standing next to Scott.  “That’s his house, he shares with a couple other people.”

There were tears in Melissa’s eyes, her body shaking quietly as she held up the photo.  “Thank you,” she whispered.  “Can I..?” she asked, holding out the photograph.

“Yeah,” Stiles nodded, “it’s yours.” 

His dad helped Melissa out of her chair and led her away from the kitchen, perhaps to cry in private and whisper comforts.

“That was very thoughtful,” Derek said placing a stack of pancakes in front of him.  Derek sat down across the table with his own plate.  “Eat.”

Stiles scratched the back of his neck, feeling the heat already pooling underneath his skin.  “I just thought, if I came back I’d have to explain my existence to her eventually.”  He shrugged, pouring maple syrup over his food. 

“It was more than that,” Derek said simply. 

Stiles shifted in his seat.  “Have you told the pack yet?”

Derek shook his head.  “They’d be here if I had.”

Stiles nodded, acquiescing the fact.  It made sense, remembering how much they had crowded him the first time, and came to care about him.  It still seemed odd, in a way.  If Scott’s pack had been told Stiles was back, he doubted any of them would seek him out. 

Derek cleared his throat, after washing down a bite of breakfast with orange juice.  Stiles looked at his own glass of milk and smiled faintly. 

“About last night,” Derek said.

Stiles face fell.  “Please don’t tell me it was a mistake.”

Derek shook his head, reaching over to place a hand gently over Stiles’s, stroking his thumb gently.  “I just wanted to ask if we can take things slow.”

“Slow?” Stiles asked, turning his hand to catch Derek’s fingers.

“We only knew each other for a month, a year ago,” Derek pointed out.  “There’s still a lot about each other to learn.”

Stiles hummed.  Then, under his breath so that only Derek could hear it, “And we can’t do that while making up for lost time with lots of wild sex?”

Watching Derek’s cheeks flush and his every muscle tense made something coil behind Stiles’s breastbone.  Derek’s nostrils flared and he wondered what sort of scent he was giving off.  He wanted to kiss Derek again, memorize those lips, memorize that body by touch.

“You are going to drive me crazy, aren’t you?”

Stiles smirked.  “And who knows.  I might have picked up a trick or two in all my years being single.”  He didn’t need to say _compared to other-him_.  It was clear.  Even if Derek knew Stiles intimately, going into this arrangement with a bit unequal footing, Stiles still had a few mysteries left. 

Derek licked his lips, looking away.  He pulled his hand out of Stiles’s grip and shook his head to clear it.  “Eat your damned food, Stiles.”  But Stiles could see the barely suppressed smile and the hunger in Derek’s eyes.

“Whatever you say,” Stiles said, licking sticky syrup off his arm.  Derek made a choked off whine, biting down on his lip hard. 

“WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING IN THERE,” the Sheriff’s voice yelled from the other room, “TAKE IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!”

Stiles couldn’t help but burst out laughing.  He and Derek were able to finish their breakfast in peace, with maybe a few instances of footsie just to rile Derek up. 

That evening, Derek had texted the pack to gather at the Hale house and brought Stiles over.  He was almost barreled into, Derek stepping in to block his betas and Allison from reaching Stiles.  There was a wall of sound, excited yells, disbelieved shouted, crazed squeals of his name.  Eventually they all settled down, except Boyd who never went wild in the first place, and gathered in the living room.

“I like the lip ring,” Malia said with a dark laughter and wicked smirk.  She was too influenced by Erica, clearly.  “Makes you look mysterious.”  She waggled her eyebrows at him.  He rolled his eyes, blushing a bit. 

“I wasn’t planning on keeping them,” he said, already reaching to pull the lip ring out.  There was a chorus of complaints but Stiles ignored them. 

“You should get a haircut,” Malia suggested, as he was taking out all his peircings.

“Nah,” Allison said, reaching over flatted a stray curl.  “I kinda like it.”

They spent hours asking him questions and telling them about their lives.  Allison had started her Master’s program.  Malia was going to take her GED test next month.  Erica had picked up mountain climbing and went on excursions with the group about once a month and was running a blog with some freelance journalism here and there.  Isaac’s work was going strong, and he was putting in the works to starting his own company out of it.  Boyd was still at the high school, and apparently one of the favorite teachers.  He had proposed to Erica a couple of months ago although neither of them have even thought about starting to plan a wedding yet.  Allison told him all about how Lydia was back in town.

“Oh, god, she’s going to recognize me.”

Derek gave him a pained smile.  “She doesn’t know about this kind of stuff yet, but I’ve been having her translate that book you used.”

That caught Stiles’s attention.  “What?”

Derek shrugged.  “The red one.”

Stiles’s lips parted a bit, realizing what Derek wasn’t saying.  He had been searching for a way back together, also.  Stiles grinned a bit stupidly before groaning.  “She’s going to figure it out.”

Allison laughed.  “We’ll deal with that when it comes to it.” 

Stiles made a face, remembering what it had been like the first time around, her on the periphery for so long and how mad she had been when finally learning the truth.  Then again, this time around there isn’t (hopefully) anyone running around trying to kill them all.  Stiles shrugged.  “Maybe we just fill her in sooner than later.” 

The subject turned quickly enough when Malia got hungry.   “Oh!  After I get my GED Derek promised to spring for cooking classes!” Malia grinned. 

“That might be more for his personal health and safety than your interest,” Isaac joked, nudging her in the side. 

He caught the way the two of them looked at each other, the blunt adoration in her eyes reminiscent of the look he got from a seventeen year old Malia.  He turned to Derek with a raised eyebrow, but Derek just shrugged.  Eventually Derek kicked them all out.  While all the pack had a place to stay here, it was only actually Derek’s home. 

“You changed your mind on the whole ‘slow’ thing?” Stiles asked as the last car drove away. 

Derek smirked but shook his head.  He leaned over the couch and pressed a soft touch of lips to Stiles’s neck.  “Slow,” Derek repeated into Stiles’s skin, sending a shiver down his spine. 

“Oh, so your game is torture, is it?” Stiles asked, a little breathy.  He pushed himself off the couch and rounded it to get closer to Derek who was sporting a smug grin.  “We can take things slow,” Stiles stated, grabbing onto the front of Derek’s shirt and tugging him a closer.  “We can go on dates, get to know each other.  We can go on day trips together.  I’ll stay with my dad until, over time, I’ve practically moved in with you anyway, and then I do so officially.  We can take things _slow_.  But,” Stiles licked at his bottom lip, inching closer to Derek.  It felt odd now, without his lip ring.  He had gotten used to it already. “That shouldn’t stop us from adding sex into the equation,” Stiles said leaning forward to bite at Derek’s earlobe, pulling it between his teeth and then whispered hotly, “after so long _waiting_.”

Derek growled, the sound reverberating between his ribcage.  Stiles’s muscles contracted at the senation.  Hot hands ran down his side and grabbed at Stiles’s ass, pulling hard enough that Stiles jumped slightly and was wrapping his legs around Derek’s waist.  Their lips were already crashing onto each other, as Stiles pulled at Derek’s hair.  He thanked everything for Derek’s strength as they made their way up the stairs without having to pause in their actions.

“You’re,” Derek gasped as Stiles starting kissing along that sharp jaw.  “You’re going to be the death of me.”

Stiles hummed against his throat.  “I hope not,” he murmured before biting into the tendon.  Derek threw his head back, pushing the bedroom door open behind him.  “I want to do this plenty more and we’ve only just gotten started.”

Derek growled again, dropping him on the bed.  His hands ran under Stiles’s shirt.  Stiles lifted his arms so Derek could tug the shirt off, which Derek did.  And then stopped completely.  Stiles whined at the still in action, breathing deeply and fast. 

“What?” Stiles snapped, when Derek just stood there, still, his chest heaving up and down.  Derek nodded to the center of Stiles’s chest.  Stiles looked down and saw the stitches.  Stiles rolled his eyes.  “They don’t even pull at my skin when I twist.”  He demonstrated to prove his point but Derek just crossed his arms. 

“No sex until you’re healed.”

Stiles sighed and slipped forward before Derek could protest, falling onto his knees and pulling at Derek’s jeans.  “No vigorous activity involving my torso until I’m healed,” Stiles amended with a smirk. 

Derek’s mouth dropped open.  “Oh god.”

.

.

.

Stiles stood in the back yard across from Derek, the tip of his tongue toying nervously with his lip ring.  He fidgeted, twisting at the fabric of his pants in lieu of biting his thumb nail.  It wasn’t the time for bad habits, he told himself, although his heart was beating in his chest like a jackhammer.  Derek just smirked at him through his wide smile.  It was blinding, really.  Breathtaking.  Stiles wasn’t sure he was even breathing.  He couldn’t look away, though.  He couldn’t even remember all the onlookers just to his left. 

“I was wholly in love once before,” Derek said, his eyes never drifting away from Stiles.  “As many people here today know.  I was in love with this amazing man, but then there was an accident, and he died.  I never thought I’d find somebody to fill that spot in my life again, that I could love the way I loved him.  And truth be told, I didn’t.  It’s not the same, but that’s what makes it special.  A year after Gościsław passed, his cousin walked into my life.  And at first, I hated him.  I hated him because he was so much like the man I lost.  In looks, in voice, they even shared the same Alma Mater and nick name and were practically twins.  But they were different men.  In time, things changed, and I found myself not falling for a copy, but a whole new person, falling in love all over again almost as if my heart had never even been broken before.”

Stiles bit his lip, pulling it all the way into his mouth, the only distraction he could afford.  Tears blurred his vision but he didn’t even want to blink.  Derek looked so beautiful and so open.  Stiles felt as if his heart was going to burst.

“I fell in love with Stiles, with Nikodem Sebastian Ryzmski.  And it consumes me just as wholly as the love I once had with someone else, but it is entirely different, because he is different, and _we_ are different.  And Nikodem has filled the spot in my heart I didn’t think could be filled.”

Derek reached over and took Stiles’s hand gently, his smile twitching fondly at how Stiles was shaking.  He slipped a simple gold band onto his finger, brushing against his knuckles softly before letting it go.

Stiles cleared his throat.  “I never thought I could fall in love.  I thought I had been too damaged.  But somehow… somehow you gave me hope, after barely a month of knowing each other, you convinced my heart that I wasn’t alone anymore.  So, after a time, I found my way back to you.  Because it didn’t matter where I came from, you had become my home.”  Stiles’s voice cracked on the last word, his voice clogging with unshed tears. 

Blushing furiously, Stiles reached over and picked up Derek’s left hand.  Allison handed him the ring, although he was barely aware of anybody’s presence besides Derek.  He slipped the band over Derek’s tanned skin, giving it a squeeze before letting it go. 

The voice of their officiator washed over him with the words, “I now pronounce you husband and husband.”   

With the cheers of their friends and family surrounding them, Stiles surged forward, releasing all his nervous energy into grabbing Derek’s face and kissing him, letting their lips linger as he slid his hands down to Derek’s shoulders, feeling the weight of Derek’s hands on his hips.

“I love you,” Stiles whispered against Derek’s lips. 

Derek nodded into the kiss before pulling back.  “I love you, too.”

He wanted Derek to take him then and now, but they had a whole reception to get through before they could manage anything so time consuming.  Stiles wiped his cheeks free of tears and took Derek’s hand to lead him back into the house.  Lydia had allotted them twenty minutes of free time away from the guests as they rearranged the backyard for food and dancing and Stiles was sure to make use of it. 

“Congratulations,” she said by the back door to let them in, already with her headpiece on and directing workers.  “Don’t mess up your tuxes or I’ll kill you both.”

Stiles just grinned stupidly at her, then stupidly at Derek as he raced his husband up stairs.  His husband.  His _husband._ “You’re my husband,” Stiles said, giddy and breathless as he rounded into their bedroom. 

Derek just gave a dopey “Yeah” and kissed Stiles.  Stiles grabbed onto the lapels of his suit jacket, causing Derek to pull back a bit, warning him not to crumple the tux.

Stiles just rolled his eyes and dropped to his knees, tugging at the zipper of Derek’s pants.

“Stiles!” he said, a bit scandalous and a lot turned on.

“What?” Stiles said innocently, pulling Derek’s pants down just enough.  “You won’t make a mess,” he winked, “promise.”

Derek threw his head back, gripping onto Stiles’s hair.  “Oh, g-god.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could thank all of you individually who've commented because you all say such amazing things and I really hope you get the chance to read this because I really truly appreciate it but my thanks seem insincere when I have so few words to express it and want to repeat myself constantly for every message. I love you all, hearing from you throughout the process of writing this story has kept it going. So thank all of you!
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> [FIND ME ON TUMBLR](http://www.inthearmsofathief.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also! I'm made a webseries about werewolves! [The Werewolf Diaries](http://www.youtube.com/c/amyberserk)


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